[April Bradford]

Mysterious Australian Animals​

I was speaking with dear member @Ricci and she shared a wonderful story of her early days in Perth. It was too good not to share!

'I had to ring hubby at work as we had an unknown animal in the garden and I needed to know if it was safe or not. Imagine, me indoors, hubby in his office with a bunch of Aussies. Me trying my best to describe said animal and him relaying my descriptions to his workmates, them rolling around the floor with laughter. When they had finally calmed down and stopped ribbing us they told me I had just seen my first Blue Tongue Lizard and that if I left it alone it would wander off in its own good time. How was I supposed to know? We had nothing similar in the UK and everything I'd ever heard about Australian wildlife was that it would try to kill you!! Looking back we were so green but life sure wasn't boring!!'

Isn't that fantastic? I'm sure you're not the only one, Ricci, but perhaps one of the only ones willing to admit it!

Thank you again for sharing!

 

[Joyem]

I like having blue tongues around, they eat snails and slugs.

 

[Suzanne rose]

And now look at Ricci with all the wildlife around her , she surely adapted

I've heard that comment before A warning that everything is Dangerous in Australia, yet we are one of the safe countries.

I remember catching tadpoles with my cousins and we would get so excited when we saw a blue tongue lizard
I had a friend who's brother used to keep blue tongues.

 

[RTS]

I saw my first mountain devil in our back lane in Boulder when I was five. I thought it was a little prickle bush until it moved and scared me and my best friend. We went racing to my house and my parents told us what it was.
My father came to Australia after the war and soon after arrival had a racehorse Goanna run up him onto his head. He said it nearly frightenef the life out of him.

 

[JayKay]

Ricci, I love your story.
I reckon you can still feel the terror of that moment.
Years ago, we had 2 living under our hot water tank. One was bluey black, the other was yellowy brown.
My children loved them.
My son rents a bungalow in Sydney at the moment, and he has a regular blue tongue visit him and sit near him when my son is in his hammock outside. I get sent the photos.
Beautiful, unusual critters.

 

[Suzanne rose]

I saw my first mountain devil in our back lane in Boulder when I was five. I thought it was a little prickle bush until it moved and scared me and my best friend. We went racing to my house and my parents told us what it was.
My father came to Australia after the war and soon after arrival had a racehorse Goanna run up him onto his head. He said it nearly frightenef the life out of him.

 

[Suzanne rose]

I love going to a beautiful hidden beach in Sydney in Parsley Bay and the small walkway leading down to the beach is full of blue tongue lizards at times they are sitting on rocks at eye level. You wouldn't want to be scared of them. But at the end of the walk is a beautiful beach

 

[Ricci]

It's not as easy as it sounds, it's more like Chinese whispers. Close your eyes and describe an animal to somebody else, get them to then describe the animal to a third party who hasn't heard your description and then get them to tell you what the animal was. If it's not an animal you are familiar with and you only caught a glimpse it's extremely difficult. We took a lot of ribbing for that phone call but it was all harmless fun and we took it on the chin.

 

[Buchan Farmer]

I used to have a family living under the false floor in my shed. daily I would feed them any snails and slugs I could find plus a few dog pellets. They were very friendly and eventually I could pat the parents

 

[Wendy]

I saw my first blue tongue lizard not long after we came to Perth too, my neighbour said to leave it and if we had one of those we wouldn't have snakes. We didn't have snakes until years later when we moved into this house in the Swan Valley.

 

[Caroline257]

Mysterious Australian Animals​

I was speaking with dear member @Ricci and she shared a wonderful story of her early days in Perth. It was too good not to share!

'I had to ring hubby at work as we had an unknown animal in the garden and I needed to know if it was safe or not. Imagine, me indoors, hubby in his office with a bunch of Aussies. Me trying my best to describe said animal and him relaying my descriptions to his workmates, them rolling around the floor with laughter. When they had finally calmed down and stopped ribbing us they told me I had just seen my first Blue Tongue Lizard and that if I left it alone it would wander off in its own good time. How was I supposed to know? We had nothing similar in the UK and everything I'd ever heard about Australian wildlife was that it would try to kill you!! Looking back we were so green but life sure wasn't boring!!'

Isn't that fantastic? I'm sure you're not the only one, Ricci, but perhaps one of the only ones willing to admit it!

Thank you again for sharing!

Great story - I can only imagine what you were thinking. Blue tongue lizards are not the most friendly or harmless looking creatures.

 

[PepeLePew]

A friend told me about a story about a guy she was dating who was from a South Pacific Island. She had taken him home to meet her family who lived on acreage and this guy decided to go for a walk by himself into the bush land surrounding the property. His walk didn't last long as he came running full pelt back to the house screaming that there was a monster in the bush that had a big yellow mouth. Turns out he had come face to face with a Bearded Dragon and when he startled it, it had gone into defensive mode scaring the bejesus out of him.