Spring is kicking in, and the reptiles have started to emerge again! One of my favourites to see around is the resident yellow spotted monitor (Varanus panoptes) that lives in a disused area of our site. This monitor is exceptionally wary, and disappears down its burrow when approached, or if it sees human movement, and can be tricky to photograph. Monitors have fascinating behaviour and movement, and capturing a shot of this one took a whole load of patience. Typically, after being spooked it wouldn’t come back out for 10-15 minutes, and then it was a patient waiting game of usually 20 minutes just with its head poked out the burrow, to anywhere up to an hour to being fully out of the burrow. Using the remote shooting setting, I set my camera opposite its burrow. These are a couple of the shots:
There are also quite a few Bynoe’s geckos around at the moment. They are a fairly ubiquitous gecko, and can be found typically under woody debris.
Bynoe’s geckos are common in disturbed landscapes, however it is apparent which habitat their camouflage is best suited to:
Suns Out, Squamata Out 