I have just spent a very tense hour and a bit trying to work out whether the ‘thing’ in the storm water pipe was a snake or a lizard. I am extraordinarily glad to be able to say it’s only a blue tongue lizard!
I took these pictures after I worked out that it was a) too short to be a snake and b) had some short little legs! Blue tongues don’t move very fast as a rule but this guy had just been flushed out of his nice safe pipe with cold water from the hose so he was going top speed for a lizard with such short legs. The fact he was being stalked by a camera clicking human, a dog and two cats probably helped as well. Not surprisingly he really didn’t want to stick around to have his photo taken!
Bluey made it into my neighbour’s paddock safe and sound and I for one breathed a sigh of relief. He did give me a bad scare but I wouldn’t have wanted him to come to any harm.
In case anyone else is interested, the difference between lizards and snakes [apart from the legs] is that lizards have fleshy tongues and snakes have thin, forked ones. Needless to say I learnt that from googling not from personal experience!
All’s well that ends well!
