Reptiles loving the heat

As the weather warms up, the reptiles are seen more often. We often have multiple water dragons at the front of the reserve and throughout. They have probably always been there but for the last few years, the land mullets have become more comfortable and at least one is seen regularly.

I don’t see the two species fight but they do appear to keep a distance from each other so I assume they must fight every now and again.

Here is a short video that was taken on a day when I could easily see a few from my balcony…

Land mullet family 19.02.2023

My children noticed a few additions to the land mullets we have seen a lot this year. I was able to get some footage of a young land mullet.

After reading, we found out this is fairly routine for them. The offspring stick with their parents for about 3 months during the first year. My perception of the uncaring reptiles needs to be rethought.

Hopefully I will be able to get some better quality video of them one day.

Water spider at Dick’s Creek – 14.10.2021

We came across this big fella yesterday. A water spider I believe. Very large, over ten centimeters. I could see why some of the kids freaked out when they saw it. It didn’t move an inch while I took these photos though…

Water spider in Dick’s Creek reserve

It is hard to get perspective from a photo so I took some video but unfortunately the quality was less than desired.

Great to see different wildlife inhabiting the creek though.

A flying Scrub Turkey at Dick’s Creek

Scrub turkeys (otherwise known as Brush or Bush Turkeys) always seem to show up when we visit natural areas frequented by people. However, at the Dick’s creek Landcare site they are a rare sight, so we were very excited to see one flying up through the trees a few days ago. Normally they tend to walk rather than fly but it occurs to me that is probably because National Parks and the like do not allow dogs. This turkey could not rely on the absence of dogs and other nasty predators so it obviously decided the trees were the place to be.

I was able to take some photos of it while it did some calls (which I had never heard before). Here is a snippet of the video I took:

I imagine it was driven to explore up the creek for the sake of finding a partner. I hope it does find a partner and we get to see little scrub turkeys in the future.