Australian Bush Life

Today whilst driving home I drove past what looked like a turtle shell in the middle of the road. As I am always looking at what is on the road as some of our wildlife are small I was confused so turned back to check and see. It was a dodgy bit of road, with hills in front and behind, and I couldn’t pull over so I drove slowly past to see. It was right on the middle line and I could still only see the shell (as they can tuck their head and legs right in), but opened the door leaned out and grabbed it without even getting out of my seat.

I was immediately squirted and realised it was alive, but that was stinky! I pulled into the first driveway and was glad to see there was a large dam in the front – probably where it had come from. The tortoise didn’t look like it had suffered any damage quite amazingly as I had seen number of cars go very close to it. I popped him in the shallows of the water just deep enough to ensure he had to raise his head for a breathe. Which he did within seconds so he appeared all okay from his dangerous jaunt.

Within minutes his legs emerged, a couple of swift strokes, a glance back at me and he was off. It felt so good to see this wild animal back in a place that it felt so at home in.

More on the Common Long-necked Tortoise – Chelodina longicollis. Also commonly called the Eastern snake-necked Turtle.

More on local wildlife…

Juvenile Blue-tongue Lizard survives bushfire.

We found 2 juvenile Blue-tongued Lizards about 3 weeks after the bushfire passed through our area. They were hiding in the telephone pit and when the phone line contractor came to fix the phone line he got quite a shock – especially thinking they were snakes at first. They were very young and I suppose had been surviving on ants as they were the most abundant food source around for this species in the first weeks after the bushfire.

We immediately set up some logs and leaf litter in a pile on the ground for them to hide under. The landscape after a bushfire doesn’t always leave many hiding options for species like Blue-tongue Lizards. Ensuring we don’t clean up the logs and leaf litter on the ground is critical to their survival and is as important as maintaining indigenous vegetation to complete their habitat (food & home) requirements. We have seen them many times since the bushfire and they have grown up quite a bit since then.