So this morning the weather was a bit iffy, but it cleared mid-morning
and I decided to make the most of the weather and tackle the largest
outcrop on the farm.
This outcrop is huge, slippery, steep-sided and either fantastic for
lizards or utterly appalling. Today was somewhere inbetween...
There WERE lizards, but they were few and far between, and i had a
fantastic time trotting from trap to trap, checking for lizards.
After three hours I began to plan quitting this to move to Jamaica,
and then I caught one! It was very exciting except that all my
planning lead me to imagining my lizards taunting me with Jamaican
accents. I blame sun exposure. And having a horrible song either by
Texas or roxette in my head.
While the remaining lizards teased me and outsmarted me over and over
again, I went hunting to use the traps freed up by my catching number
5, and I spotted the most beautiful lizard ever!
He was right at the bottom of a steep and slippery slope, and so i
went down very carefully- trying to avoid falling without losing sight
of a lizard is hard! And I set the traps and started climbing.
I had just reached the safe part, above the slippery area, when I
heard a noise- I'd caught him! And he was trying really hard to
escape. So, in terror, I did what any self-respecting zoologist would
do:
with total regard for personal safety, I dropped everything and
launched myself down the slope, landing very gracefully in a pile of
leaf litter and a branch and grabbed him.
In other news, I have a masters student visiting to catch lizards and
she's brought some friends so I have some company for the weekend. Her
cousin's fiancee just staggered through the room in his boxers and
asked me why the world is moving. Which is why you don't drink a
wineglass of vodka. And repeating that with various other things is
also a bad idea.
The anti-poaching guys are back too, but I'll have to talk about that
tomorrow, as the drunk cousin's fiancee in boxers just tried
swallowing two effervescent aspirin and is now not happy!
4 comments:
Helen, we need some photos of your Lizard lodgers and your environment. Please?
I must admit. i too wish to have a look at some of these rocky outcrops.
(are they similar to the ones in bronkhorstspruit where we did the elephant shrew stuff?)
Helen! I thought we discussed this! No falling down hills! That's my talent! Although, admittedly you dived, which is far more graceful!
I am all up for pictures too...at least of the lizard you dove after. Please don't injure yourself too severly. :)
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