Had a VERY quick trip to The Australian Botanic Garden, Mount Annan but it turned out to be just what we needed. I feel sorry for the husband when I do these mini trips during the week. I always come home with stories of amazing animal encounters often showing him my photos while singing songs like 'she works hard for the money' ironically of course because ummm what money?😂 But as happy as he might be for me, and even though his mouth is saying all of these encouraging things and he nods in appreciation of both my images and my dancing and singing, his face is saying, "While you play, I work". So I wanted to make sure that we both got to play today.
Thanks to a friend who was already in the gardens we were able to not only see a gorgeous Owlet Nightjar but also the critter that was at the top of my 'hope to see again list' a lovely little Lace Monitor, neither of which we would have spotted by ourselves! I love, love, love Monitors and have only come across them in the gardens for some reason but today we got super lucky and not only saw the young one pointed out to us, laying lazily in the branches of a gum tree but a second one, who popped its head out of a nearby hollow to see what on earth was making all that noise - spoiler alert: it was me 😂 but proceeded to doze off while it waited for us to move on.
We also got to watch a crazy interaction between a very irritated Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo and one of the Monitors. The cockie made its way along the branch, carefully mind you, where the lizard was snoozing, its wings outstretched, absolutely screeching its heart out. At one point it picked up a loose stick and threw it to the ground, still screaming and flapping around of course, furiously nodding its head in defiance before moving off to the side and breaking off a couple of twigs 😂
The Lace Monitor did nothing. For a while. And then finally the cockie took it a step too far and leant forward, beak open and went to give the tail a little nip, just a little one, with the lizard flicking its head around and making it absolutely clear there would be no nibbled tails today!
Lace Monitor and Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo
Mt Annan
