A few photographs of my critters - part 1 - Page 11

BarelyBreathing · 02-18-12, 07:03 PM

Ha, if you're up for a visitor, let me know.

crocdoc · 02-18-12, 07:35 PM

I never need much of an excuse to head out to my favourite spots, but showing it to other people is always a bonus so I've taken a lot of overseas visitors out to see monitors. One of my most successful trips was taking an American monitor-loving acquaintance from another monitor forum, who had just arrived in Australia to study zoology in Queensland, out to this spot on his second day in the country. We saw seven lace monitors and a gravid female heath monitor in the act of digging a nest cavity. He was stoked. Heck, I was stoked.

These were taken that very day, in February, 2008.

Look closely:

A close-up, to make it easier:

It's the same mound I photographed yesterday and I first started photographing digs in this mound in 2004.

In 2004 she nested on the side of the mound. Unlike yesterday's photographs, this is an actual nest rather than a test dig. The termites had already repaired the hole.

That's 8 years for that mound, so far. So much for the Arizona assertion that wild female monitors only live 5 years. My money is on it being the same female, too, and if I get time (and weather permits) I'll head out again later this week to see if I can find her. I have several shots of her that I can use for identification and, although I haven't always caught her in the act of digging, I have caught her in the vicinity of the mound before and after the holes appeared during at least two different breeding seasons.

Here's one of my 'I.D.' shots, showing her gravid and ready to lay, in 2008.

crocdoc · 02-19-12, 05:54 PM

A few more photographs to add to the story:

I have quite a number of photographs of the same mound during the years between 2004 and 2012. The bush on the left hand side with the distinctive leaves is still there, barely, but everything else is constantly changing. The mound has gone through healthy years and bad years. It grows when the colony is healthy (in wet years) and erodes when the colony has been reduced (in dry years). I thought it was dead for a couple of years, after a fire had gone through that area, but I was proven wrong when the female dug a nest hole and the termites came out of the underground core to repair the hole.

Here's the nest hole during the 2009 breeding season, photographed before and after the termites repaired the damage:

Here are some holes made by the escaping hatchlings in spring, during the 2011 breeding season.

BarelyBreathing · 02-19-12, 06:02 PM

That's too cool. Seriously.

alessia55 · 02-19-12, 06:07 PM

Can't get over how amazing it must be to see these guys in the wild like that...

**millertime89** · 02-19-12, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BarelyBreathing

That's too cool. Seriously.

Totally, I love seeing where the wee little buggers come clawing out.

**millertime89** · 02-19-12, 06:13 PM

argh, I hate how clunky the BS forum is...

crocdoc · 02-19-12, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by millertime89

Totally, I love seeing where the wee little buggers come clawing out.

A friend saw and photographed that two years ago. The babies have bright salmon-pink markings. It was incredible.

He and I were chatting at a herp meeting one night and he said that he envied me for seeing a female digging a nest hole. I told him that it was the time of year for babies to emerge, so he should keep an eye out. He has a job that gives him afternoons free to do what he wants and he often goes mountain biking in an area that has a lot of heath monitors.

The very next day he found babies emerging and the !@#$% had the nerve to send me photographs from his phone to my work computer.

crocdoc · 02-21-12, 12:57 AM

I went for a quick run up to the termite mound yesterday to see if there was any more activity. No more digging, but tracks indicating that the female had visited the mound at least once. I did, however, find a lace monitor on my way back to the car.

It was one of the other animals I've been photographing for a long time. I call this one 'Darkface'. He was the first monitor I photographed in the area 12 years ago, even before Bluey, but he's a younger animal. Although he hasn't grown much over the 12 years, he's filled out a bit and his colours and pattern have changed slightly as well.

Here he is as he looked yesterday:

Last April (2011)

September 2009

November 2000 (scanned from a slide)

infernalis · 02-21-12, 01:15 AM

I can never see too many of these photographs.

**millertime89** · 02-21-12, 12:55 PM

he looks like he had some weight on him in April and September.

crocdoc · 02-21-12, 04:42 PM

Last April he was as thin as he is now (pretty thin, too), but you're right in that September 2009 he was a bit chunkier.

I've seen this in all of the monitors I've been photographing over the years. They have good years and bad years, or even good months and bad months. Sometimes they're so thin that you'd think they're not going to make it through winter, then a year or two later they are robust as.

infernalis · 02-21-12, 04:49 PM

Do you ever feel "attached" to the ones you see frequently??

I know I do with some of the garter snakes I see year after year that I photograph.

crocdoc · 02-21-12, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infernalis

Do you ever feel "attached" to the ones you see frequently??

Does being close to tears when I saw Bluey's swollen forelimb and limp the other day count? I found myself hoping that when he does go, he disappears quietly rather than me finding him dead somewhere.

infernalis · 02-21-12, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crocdoc

Does being close to tears when I saw Bluey's swollen forelimb and limp the other day count? I found myself hoping that when he does go, he disappears quietly rather than me finding him dead somewhere.

Yes, that counts.