The environment: science, ethics and communication
A Guide to Wildlife and protected areas of the Top End
Lindley McKay
Environment Centre NT, 2017
This handsomely produced book is the result of an ambitious project undertaken by the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory. It will be a valuable resource for years to come, not only for Territorians but for anyone living in, or visiting, North Queensland and Northern WA.
Continue reading “A Guide to Wildlife and protected areas of the Top End”
A collection of photos from our visit to Alligator Creek on Easter Saturday, as promised a few days ago in my post about the goanna.
We parked at the picnic ground, followed the Alligator Creek Falls walking track as far as Cockatoo Creek, two kilometres upstream, and returned for a late lunch before a heavy shower of rain made us decide to return home rather than walk down for a swim.
The creek and park are at their best now. Continue reading “Alligator Creek photo album”
We visited Alligator Creek today. It was very beautiful after recent rain and more photos will appear here soon but the goanna we saw in the picnic ground gave us so much pleasure that it should have a post to itself.
It was a Lace Monitor, Varanus varius, and must have been nearly fully grown because it was about 1.7 m long and they only grow to 2.1 m, according to Wilson’s Field Guide to Reptiles of Queensland. Continue reading “Goanna at Alligator Creek”
Green Path doesn’t spend much time on lizards other than geckos or skinks, mainly because its author doesn’t see them terribly often, so a quick overview may be in order.
The lizard families we have in Queensland are Geckos, Skinks, Dragons, Monitors (Goannas) and Flap-footed Lizards (Legless Lizards). (Wikipedia has a beautiful taxonomic chart that places them in relationship to each other and all the other families worldwide, if you’re interested.)
We don’t have as many Dragons (Agamidae) as Skinks or Geckos but they are attractive and distinctive and some, e.g. the Frill-necked Lizard and Thorny Devil, are very well known. Continue reading “Nobbi, the cute dragon lizard”
Almost every visit to Hervey’s Range rewards me with material for Green Path but we do miss a lot of its wildlife because we’re merely visitors, not residents. This beautiful creature, stretched across the track yesterday, is a case in point.
