Boot is well and truly on the other foot!

I have been handling larger venomous snakes for a touch over a quarter of a century - I am 40. I man-handled my first adult Dugite into a bag and, subsequently, into a cage in my bedroom when I was only 14. Its actually quite a funny story. When my best buddy, Rico and I went out a hunting 'big nasties' for the first time Dad told me not to come back with anything over 2 ft. I returned with a 4 ft Dugite from the old Mayland Claypits. I begged and pleaded with my father that it would only be 2 ft long if I folded it in half! He softened and I got to keep it.

I digress (yet again). From as far back as I can remember (and as far back as people were willing to listen to my rants), I have been dishing out advice on how people in snake-infested landscapes should learn to live among the snakes. If you live near Herdsman Lake, you are going to get Tigers in your toilet and if you live in Bayswater or Maylands you are going to get Dugites in your den. "You just need to be 'snake aware'" I would say. "You just need to keep your grass trimmed, your garden undergrowth tidy, and you must not, under any circumstances, promote the proliferation of mice" I said. 

Well, guess who owns their own little piece of rural paradise now? And now I have a 'snake problem'. I am eating a very large serve of humble pie with massive calorie-laden dollop of double whipped cream? Yes - I am. I asserted to so many, for so long, that snakes were easily managed and easy to live alongside. Now every time my daughters go and play by the river my sphincter tightens and I am constantly scanning the bank to see if one of them is staggering, limp and listless, toward me with that vague 'knocking on Death's door' look on their face.

The vegetation along the river has created a Hume Highway between the neighbours on the left and the neighbours on the right and our block (11.5 acres of grassland) is rather akin to those Travel Stops on the autobahns of Europe where you can select all you can eat from either McDonalds, KFC or Burger King all within 100 yards of each other. We have mice by the millions and it appears that the legless locals rather fancy our crawl-through or dine-in options. We tried to do the right thing and slashed all 11.5 acres of waste high wild oats in October last year. All we did was expel row after row of dead grass which provided the mice with no end of nesting habitat and created a euphoria for the snakes who are now so incredibly fat and lethargic that they don't even bother trying to escape capture.

So next time you have a snake in your house, spare a thought for us. 

Actually, don't bother as I don't think I ever really spared a thought, or really considered the anxiety and stress that encumbers those that live in close association with the serpent. I guess the only difference between them and I is that if I see the little buggers I can deal with them safely, swiftly and without a requirement to be 'packin' heat' in the form of a 12 gauge shotty.

Today's find!

Easter....no it is not dead (see below).

#Giveasnakeabreak

Remember that hilarious advert where the guy is leaving the beach in his budgie smugglers and the narrator asks at what point do bathers become undies? When he crosses the car park? When he crosses the road? When he walks into the shop? I love that advert.

At what point in his life is this little guy no longer cute? Look at him. He is tiny. He is no longer and no wider than a milkshake straw.

Granted, he has a little bit of venom in his teeny weeny venom glands that are connected to two itzy bitzy toothy pegs at the front of his mouth. But this is surely not a face that only a mother could love? Look at those big black glossy dinner plate eyes; desperately shy and nervous. Those silky smooth scales feel just like your Grandma's old glow-mesh purse. And that cute little forked tongue whips in, out and around just as you imagine it might out of a naughty little child that is up to no good.

Is he no longer cute when the venom he holds is of a quantity that might make your cat sick? Lets face it, there is every chance that Fluffy might take a bite on her powder-puff nose as this little guy desperately tries to defend himself; locked in Fluffy's jaws with one of Fluffy's incisors piecing through his spine.

Is he no longer cute when someone sees him as the deadly spawn of Satan when he is slowly crossing the footpath? On a cold, but sunny winters day he barely has the energy to move, let alone defend himself. Is he less or more appealing  to you after that same person rides over top of him leaving him to drag the lower half of his body off the pavement and into the bushes where he can die a long and painful death with a broken back, twisted intestines and crushed kidneys?

Is he no longer cute because he accidentally breached the confines of his tiny patch of remnant vegetation left by developers that built houses on all four sides of his home? In or out of the bush he is a threat to our safety, so best you run over him in your big shiny Landcruiser; right?

Or will he simply never be cute because he is a tiger snake?

Those three scenarios are real. They just happened in the week past; around the corner from me. The latter two victims are now dead; only the little bloke you see here, who was the hapless prey of Fluffy the murderous moggy, remains with us today. He clings to life as his little body battles in a race against time to repair itself. Hopefully, with a bit of luck, he may get to see another one of these........................................

Lite Relief

Caught up among the rigors of the great mining down-turn, post-budget depression (emotional not fiscal), job (in)security etc etc etc, sometimes we forget that we have to live. Sometimes we forget that a little extra effort invested into dragging ourselves from the depths of despair and out into the fresh Autumn air will do us nothing short of the world of good. That is why, after a frantic few weeks of travelling for work (to the point where I did not know which town I was in the day before yesterday) I decided to travel a little further to Harvey. Four hundred like minded guys and girls joined me for a very very dirty weekend.

The linked video is probably a bit of a 'gas' unless you are a dirt bike fan. It is actually only 15min, not 26 as the clip duration suggests (editing glitch at the end). Having said that, seeing 400 riders packed into a small holding pen, every single one anxious to get out onto the trails, is certainly a sight to behold.
2014 Harvey Adventure Rally

Quoll vs Toad

The Northern Quoll is listed as endangered under the Federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation  Act 1999. Without doubt, the greatest threat to this amazing little beasty comes from the Cane Toad. Cute.....no?

As the quoll has a very short life span (only two years) and is such a voracious feeder, it lives and dies with only two primary objectives: to eat and to make babies. As such, anything that moves in front of a quoll is attacked and eaten. Unless, of course it is a quoll of the opposite sex. Then....well, you can guess what happens.

Couple that appetite with a super high metabolic rate and a digestive process that is always in overdrive and the response to an easy prey item is very predictable. When the quolls attack and eat a cane toad they quickly meet an untimely demise. Quoll populations across the Kimberley are being decimated as the toads march westward and down the coast of Western Australia. Pilbara and Island populations are safe for now but they won't be safe for long.

Animal Plant Mineral, Murdoch University and Mount Gibson Iron have commenced a four year research program which hopes to make a considerable contribution to knowledge of the Northern Quoll and the threats imposed by the presence of the Cane Toad. The video link below gives you some idea of what all the fuss is about.

Koolan Island quoll research.

When is safety unsafe?

I have just sat through two days of mine site inductions. To avert your immediate tendency to want to ‘switch off’, I urgently assert that this is not a rant about the ever-frustrating and productivity-retarding runaway phenomenon that is ‘Occupational Health and Safety’; far from it.

In fact, the last two days have been, at the very least, relaxing and, at most, absolutely comical, with an almost constant banter between us (the biologists (N=2)), and the hydrocarbon infused pilots of the big yellow Tonka trucks. These guys all considered themselves the consummate taxonomists, referring to the Northern Quoll (the focus of our current survey) as the northern numbat, mainland quokka, the great Australian gerbil and the short-eared lesser-bilby.

My apologies as I have digressed somewhat. What I really want to discuss is the merit of Venomous Snake Relocation training in the work place, with particular attention on mine sites in Western Australia. Not just the one I am on: All of them. I am one of the select few in Western Australia who are fully qualified and endorsed by the Department of Parks and Wildlife to teach people how to safely capture and relocate snakes that are a nuisance in the work-place. The demand from mining companies for such training is incessant and these companies are willing to pay top dollar for skilled trainers. So it would seem counter intuitive that I would challenge the necessity for mine site personnel to undergo such training.

Make no mistake; I adore venomous herpetofauna (i.e. reptiles and amphibians). I always have and likely always will. Contributing to the welfare of this much unloved fauna group has always been one of my highest priorities and, as such, I spent many years as a youngster voluntarily saving snakes from people. That was until the inevitable encumbrances of children, work and home duties left me insufficiently idle and no longer able to immediately respond to those cries for help. I have, since, sent many years trying to raise the profile of snakes and increase public awareness and safety of people who might inadvertently encounter a snake. Yes; there is a place for volunteer snake relocators and they do an amazing job of preventing our native herpetofauna from meeting an untimely demise. For the most part, they are passionate amateur herpetologists that live, eat sleep and breathe snakes.

However, I question the merit of training mine site personnel that are not herpetologists or, at the very least, hobby reptile keepers, to relocate nuisance snakes on mine sites or in the work place. Having conducted innumerable Venomous Snake Relocation training courses over the last 10 years I can state, with confidence, that the majority of people I train have no more than a passing interest in relocating snakes. More often than not, they are long term FIFO workers that are just looking for another certification to add to their resume or another excuse to take a couple of days out of their monotonous rotation to do something a little bit ‘exciting’. Don’t get me wrong: if my company offered to pay me to do a training course that sounded even remotely interesting I would jump at the chance. Everyone is entitled to drain as many benefits out of their workplace as they possibly can. More importantly, I am certainly not intimating that snake relocation is a highly evolved skill, the training for which should only be offered to a select few of sound body and mind. No, grasshopper, this is not so.

My concern centres on the safety and well-being of those I am training. In short, I conduct a two day, slow and progressive hands-on training course where trainees build their confidence and skill to a level such that they can demonstrate to me, at the end of the second day that they can competently and confidently get an agitated snake in a bag without hurting the snake or themselves. Having witnessed this I provide them with an endorsement that is, in effect, a certification that they are now a qualified Venomous Snake Relocators. They can then take that endorsement to any mine site and go on the ‘list’ as a snake catcher. Never mind the fact that different trainers train to use different methods and thus different mine carry different equipment: that is another story.

What is, perhaps, my greatest concern is that the person I train today may not encounter a snake for a week, a month, or a year. How then do we know (how do they know) if they are still capable when it comes time to bag their first snake? I can assure you that, for many of the trainees, the morning after the training is possibly the last time give another thought to venomous snake relocation. That is, until they are called upon months later to remove one. Evidence supporting this conclusion comes from the very limited number of trainees that even bother to follow through with their legal obligations to apply for the actual Wildlife Licence to remove venomous fauna. Instead, their name simply goes onto a list and when the call comes, they need to respond. Now, everyone has the right to refuse to undertake a task if they believe it to be unsafe and, therefore, the ‘qualified’ relocator has every right to raise his hand and say “No thankyou, please try the next person”. However, I am pretty sure that ego and bravado assert a small influence on this decision making process and, on a mine site, the average Joe is not going to concede that he is too nervous to undertake a task he has, clearly, received the requisite training to do. On the flip side, a great many relocations on mine sites are executed on snakes that were merely passing through and represented no threat to anyone and no loss of productivity. They are captured and relocated just for the sake of it. I have the data to back this statement up, should anyone wish to challenge this assertion.

Below is the most common pyramid or hierarchy of hazard control used in many mine sites. In the first instance, snakes cannot be eliminated. Following on, they are not a piece of machinery or equipment, so they can’t be substituted out of the equation in an operational scenario. Their presence in the work place could be engineered out, but that is grossly impractical, unless you want to encapsulate the mine site in a bubble, barricading it off from the natural environment in which it is set.

At the other end of the pyramid is Personal Protective Equipment and most mine sites have got this pretty well covered. As a general rule all personnel at work are required to wear ankle height boots, long pants, gloves, glasses and hard hats. Unfortunately, this is not the case back in camp where shorts and thongs are combined with a quiet beer or two and more relaxed and less attentive demeanour. When engaged, PPE does help to protect the individual, which is perhaps the best we can hope for. However, it does not allow ‘old mate’ to get back into his donger after a drink at the ‘wetty’ when there is a Mulga Snake perched on his front step, nor does it allow him to commence work in his D10 Cat Dozer when there is a Taipan sitting on the ignition switch.

So that leaves us with Administrative Solutions, which encompass education, training and, in many cases, isolation and exclusion. Venomous Snake Relocation is a very good tool to reduce the overall risk that someone on the mine site will be bitten by a snake causing severe injury or even death, providing the relocator is an experience herpetologist that has relocated many snakes in innumerable situations previously. However, calling upon a person to relocate a snake when that person has merely attended a two day training programme and is not a bonifide herpetologist that is 100% committed to developing his/her skills on a very regular basis, is a very bad idea that needs serious redress.

Where does that leave us? Option 1 is to rely only on Venomous Snake Relocators that have taken it upon themselves to undergo appropriate training in their own personal time, who hold a current Regulation 17 licence issued by the State Department of Parks and Wildlife and who can readily demonstrate a continuous history of snake relocation at the work site and, more importantly, at home on their own time. If such a person does not exist on the mine site, then that is too bad. Option 2 is to just leave the snake to go on its merry way and to cordon off the machine or the affected area until the ‘perceived threat’ has passed. This may seem impractical but I have been on sites where the entire mine site is shut down when a little white box beeps and says there is lightning someone on the horizon! So my suggestion is not as impractical as it sounds.

What should we not do? Offer training to anyone who wants a day or two off to break the monotony of their day to day work life and who will never give a snake, or its welfare, another thought once the course is over and the certificate of competency has been signed and issued to them.

Am I being synical? Maybe. Am I being sensible in challenging what has become so broadly accepted as the norm? I think so. After all, improvements in safety come from continual change and the never ending pursuit of Zero Harm to People and the Environment.

A snakes life challenges Darwin's theories on Natural Selection and Evolution

If you are into fossils, dinosaurs, global extinctions, primordial soups and the emergence of slimy the lobe-finned fishes from the murky depths up onto dry land during the Devonian period, then you most probably believe that Charles Darwin hit a home run with his theories on evolution and natural selection: that is, if a particular individual of a particular species just happens to be born with a fantastic, new and novel trait that improves its chances of survival (a mutation at birth), then that individual will likely have a wonderful life and make lots of babies that will also possess that same trait. These babies will then grow up, and make lots more strong, fit and healthy babies; and so on it goes until this new fancy trait becomes INKED into the genotype or the genetic blueprint of the species. Pity all of the remaining individuals of the species not born with the trait as, according to Darwin and most other evolutionary biologists of the era,  they will wither on the vine. In short, they will not produce very many happy babies, each of whom will drag itself through a miserable existence and most likely die before they get to experience the joy of child birth and the uplifting experience that is parenting. As a consequence their genetic blueprint (their origin, their ancestry) will simply fade into obscurity! Too bad, so sad but such is the power of natural selection.

When it comes to evolution and survival of the fittest, Charles Darwin was right, and everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong – maybe that is true, maybe it is not.

We all agree that over geological time (we are talking centuries or millions of years, not days and weeks here) an organism’s natural environment is constantly changing. Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection fed from this constant change and a species urgent need to stay on top of that change. With change comes challenge: organisms must adapt, evolve and overcome in order to continue their species. If they don’t they die.

But what if you possessed a whole bunch of really neat traits that were not particularly useful now, but were to become very useful in the near future? Moreover, what if when a change came you did not need to adapt, evolve and overcome because you happen to possess the perfect body plan: you did not need to evolve because you, and those within your species, genus, family or even order already possess the traits needed to survive a new world order?

All of a sudden, we see that there may be more than one explanation as to how organisms have changed over time: more than one explanation for the “origin of the species”. Published on 24 November 1859, this work was considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.

Charles Darwin is not wrong, not by any stretch. But he was not necessarily all right either. Whatever the case, his ideas dominated the minds of evolutionary theorists for decade upon decade!! There is another explanation for how the organisms we see around us every day came to be and, believe it or not, the best examples come from the least loved and, who most naively consider, the most under-evolved fauna group in the world – the snakes.

A very simple comparison of two separate populations of the Western Tiger Snake, Notechis scutatus, can be used to poke holes in Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. How? Well, quite simply, two populations of the same snake species survives in two radically different environments: one lives in a freshwater lake in suburban Perth, Western Australia, and the other lives on a near-shore desert island less than 5km from Perth’s coastline. These two populations of tiger snake are genetically identical. They have not evolved, adapted, or capitalized on any radical mutations at birth – they just happen to be extremely tolerant to a broad range of ecological challenges that would quickly kill off other less hardy organisms. They have the perfect body and they know how to use it. For example, Tiger Snakes at Herdsman Lake don’t really demonstrate any urgency to drink fresh water. Why would they? They are surrounded by the stuff all year round and the prey they eat (frogs) are basically saturated sponges with legs! On Carrnac it is a different story. For the majority of the year there is no fresh water available to drink and there is not enough water generated from prey consumption and digestion to keep snakes going. As a consequence, Carnac snakes go bananas over the water that becomes available during summer thunderstorms. That makes perfect sense, but would you believe they display this reponse whether they are thirsty or not? Basically, they react opportunistically to available water whether they need it or not. If it rains they emerge from their water conserving burrows, where they have been dodging the heat and aridity for months at a time, like a swarm of bees out of a hive to drink as much as they can as quick as they can. What’s even more interesting is their ability to determine salty water from fresh, with snakes often drinking off their own bodies to avoid taking in salty water off the ground – a phenomenon only ever recorded by science in one other species of snake. In contrast, summer thunderstorms mean nothing to Herdsman Lake snakes, whether they are thirsty or not. Is the evolution of this behavior an outcome of natural selection – no it is not. On the flip side, the theory of natural selection has it that if a trait is not utilized it will eventually be selected out. On Carnac Island, the tiger snakes feed on Silver Gull chicks. Whilst doing so they fall victim to vicious, though fairly well justified, aerial attacks from the adult gulls. The gulls bombard the snakes about the head with a stabbing, tearing beak and it is most common for the poor snake to emerge from its culinary pursuits with full belly, but unfortunately no eyes. A large proportion of the snakes on Carnac are completely blind, with their eyes fused over with scar tissue. 

Head damaged caused by adult Silver Gulls

However, this does not disable the snakes at all. Blind individuals continue to feed and mate for the term of their natural life. They maintain body condition and daily activity schedules that are not dissimilar to their visually enabled conspecifics. Gazing distant toward the evolutionary horizon (pardon the ocular orientation of my pun), and as per Darwin’s theory, one must infer that eventually the Carnac tiger snake population will evolve to be born with no eyes and a fortified head shield to protect it during meal time. Natural selection and evolution – who needs it? Just make do with what you have got.

 Less than 1km across the water Garden Island is located. There are tiger snakes on Garden Island too, but as they look and behave identical to the rest of the mainland population they are of little interest to you and I – no disrespect meant. A far more interesting story persists within the islands population of giant South West Carpet Pythons. Insular gigantism is a common phenomenon, particularly within reptiles. Basically, if you have the ideal basic body plan, as reptiles do, and you can manage to swallow huge prey, then you will get big: very big. But on Garden Island the story is just that little bit more interesting. Neonate (newborn), juvenile, sub-adult and many mature adult pythons only ever grow to about 1.5m in length and weigh not much more than one kilogram. This is typical of the size and weight of South West Carpet Pythons throughout WA. However, many adults (typically males) can grow to 5 m in length and weigh several kilograms. If that was not basis enough for a good story, then ponder this: there are very few individuals on the island that fall into the size and weight range around the middle of this growth spectrum. Thus this population is extremely unique in having a bimodal size distribution. If you were to graph the population’s size you would have two peaks showing high numbers of snakes around the 1-2 m mark and the 4-5 m mark, separated by a trough with few individuals between 2 – 4 m. Why? Or more importantly how is that interesting? From birth to young adult, both male and female snakes feed on a range of small prey, including mice, rats, lizards and nestling chicks. At maturity, the females choose to invest all their energy into breeding which limits their capacity to grow much larger than they need to in order to bare young. As in many animal groups, the female always seems to be the gender making all the sacrifices to continue the species! The lazy males just continue to eat and accrue resources that they invest into little more than growth and the pursuit of females. Sound familiar? When you are an ectotherm (taking energy from heat in the environment) you can do this. When you are an endotherm (constantly burning body resources to maintain body warmth) this is not so easy. At this point I digress, and again question why biologists consider reptiles and amphibians to be an ‘evolutionary backwater’. Back on task, where this story becomes remarkable is right at the point, in size and weight, that a python is fortunate enough to take down its first juvenile Tammar Wallaby, of which there are thousands on the island. Once they are big enough to take one, they quickly grow bigger and are far more capable of taking larger Tammar Wallabys more frequently. Their growth rate explodes to the point where they attain a size only limited by their ability to stay alive. This predator prey interaction dictates that the population exists as two sub populations: the giant gluttonous snakes that feed on five star, Michilin Plate winning wallaby and the smaller individuals that have to make do with their three star diet of house mouse and lizard. Natural Selection causing insular gigantism – no, sorry. And they call mammals ‘Higher Vertebrates’. Not in this instance.

In my lifetime as a biologist, edging into nearly 40 years spent pouncing on my quarry, I have only ever seen three death adders in the wild. The name was derived from the term Deaf Adder, arising from the observations that one could virtually stand atop these cryptic creatures and, like a sniper, they would not give away their position. Things are not so for this species on the islands of the Archipelago of Recherche. They are everywhere and everywhere they are they are obvious. I first must affirm my ability as a zoologist and ask myself if am simply missing them when I go searching in the mesic woodlands and forests of mainland Western Australia. Surely I am not so inept that I can’t find a snake that is as fat and as long as my own arm? At the risk of self-validating my skills, I am going to assert that they are simply thin on the ground on the mainland but most abundant on these islands. Why? Their traditional mainland habitat does not have a high carrying capacity (ability to support) for the prey that adders eat, and if you are going to sit in one spot it can be sometime between opportunities to snatch prey. The islands, however, present a different balance of energy in the food chain. Lots of food for adders, means a reduction in the need for total crypsis to capture unsuspecting prey. Moreover, more food also means more adders and lack of predators means that individuals lack the intrinsic inertia to employ predatory avoidance strategies, such as need to stay hidden. Natural Selection – no. Shear laziness in an island paradise changing the population dynamics of these island adders – yes, more likely.

When you start to consider the Dugites on Rottnest Island, the Mulga Snakes on Barrow Island, the famous Chappel Island tiger snakes, not to mention the Rough-scaled Python, and the Arafura File Snake (I could go on), Darwin’s theory starts to look a little like a wedge of Swiss cheese.

Is self-preservation more important than helping each other out?

A while back, I was driving down the road and I saw this knuckle-dragger harassing a women at a major intersection in broad day light. Within 10 m was 15 or more vehicles full of 'bystanders' - stopped, stationary at the lights. I was going through a green but I slowed right down and in those few moments what I saw ratified that this women was not in a good space - pinned against a wall with this neanderthal screaming in her face. 

Now I am not a big guy, and I am certainly not a tough guy. But I am not the type to turn a blind eye to something that is clearly very wrong. Or am I?

As I got past the lights, I pulled over and it took me at least five minutes to muster the courage to go back. Why did it take so long? It shouldn’t have. But I kept thinking of my wife and kids and the number of good Samaritans that come off second best in such circumstances. What if he had a knife and wanted to prove to this girl that he was little scared of anyone else and that she should be a lot scared of him. 

I swung the car around and raced back to the intersection – still no-one had intervened.  Fortunately, I arrived to see the woman dash across the road toward a waiting car parked haphazardly half on the verge and half on the road. Clearly this was a friend she must have managed to call before being accosted by this yobbo. As she struggled to get in the vehicle he was forcefully closing the door on her. She succeeded in her plight and they sped off, with him in foot-pursuit launching a tirade of abuse. What a pathetic embarrassment to all who carry that ‘y’ chromosome.

Providing she never sees him again she has most likely gotten away with just post-traumatic stress and an emergent case of agoraphobia. Me, on the other hand: I was left wondering how much worse it could have been for her and how I should not have hesitated. 

A tough question to answer: is the propensity to preserve one’s self so much more important than the safety of others. Maybe, I could have at least talked him down from the safety of my vehicle. 

I recall a few years back I stopped on the side of the road to discipline a teenager for throwing bottles at cars, during a period where missiles hurled at cars was causing serious injuries and regularly making headlines at 6pm. Within what seemed like only minutes I was on the mobile to the police staring the kid down as he stood in front of me wielding a cricket bat. On that occasion, I was the victim and not one of the 100 passer-bys stopped to offer assistance. 

At this point in my life I am still unsure whether I should put myself at risk to assist those in need; or should I simply lower my brow and shuffle past everyday conflicts. I faced this dilemma again today. About 30 km shy of Kununurra, on the way to the airport with plenty of time up my sleeve, I passed by a man clearly stranded on the side of the road. My first thought was that he looked a little rough and just a little too menacing for my liking. So I kept driving, safe in the knowledge that some other Good Samaritan would render him assistance. And then I stopped, swung the car around and went to his aid. He had one flat tyre on the vehicle and his spare was also knackered. Oddly, he immediately became insistent that he had cash and could buy one of my spares, pointing out that I had three and did not need them all. He neglected to accept that I was driving a hire car and that I was not at liberty to sell Thrifty’s vehicle spares on the side of the highway to a complete stranger. Whatever the case, and more oddly still,  he had a Nissan with rim specifications that were clearly not the same as my Toyota. He looked well and truly bush-savvy enough to know this, but still he persisted. There was very little I could do for him other than to offer to take him into town. He refused, which was very curious given town was only 15 minutes away. In the end, I agreed to call a mechanic when I got to town and request that they, on good faith that he would still be there, drive out to him with a replacement tyre. I made the call – the mechanic did not answer. I even called the Police to see if they would help, but they were not able to. Is he still on the side of the road? I doubt it. Had I got out of the car to help him would I now be on the side of the road – lifeless, in a ditch, leaving my kids without a father and my wife without a husband? Neither you nor I will ever know.

Not What I Was Expecting

Down From the Trees

It is a little hard to believe that I was getting paid to ride my trials bike through the pristine Kimberley Savannah. I would have done it for free. Plodding on a motorbike means you probably miss a great deal of fauna, but when you are riding for three days one is bound to come across something. Typically super elusive, the Green Tree Snake is usually found.....well, up trees. But today I saw TWO basking on rocks at the waters edge. I cut this little clip (click on the title to connect to youtube) so you could share the moment with me. Though this one took to the grass, via the water.The second one, however, dived underwater and hid under a rock. When I found him, and extricated him from his hiding spot, he shot straight back into the water and under another rock!! Far be it from me to point out the blatantly obvious, but perhaps it should have retreated to the trees?

Green Tree...errrrr....Water Snake

Its not about me, its about you!

Hello Birdy - William McInnes and I

About 3 or 4 years ago, I had made up my mind that I wanted to be famous. Well, in reality, the thought had crossed my mind a number of times over the years. I thought this meant getting my 'mug' in front of the camera and into every living room from Balga to Badgingarra. I now realize this is not what I want for myself: What I really want is to share my experiences with others.

Just this morning I received an email from YET ANOTHER university graduate looking for advice on how to get a job. That is fine - bring it on. I have absolutely no problem taking a few minutes out of my day to give someone some useful advice. If it improves their chances of employment in a profession that has given me so much joy, then I want to do it (provided they pay it forward in 20 years time when they are receiving similar emails). Sorry, I digress: Back to me and Will.

Last year I was involved in a documentary called Hello Birdy with the far-more-famous than I, Mr William McInnes. What a hilarious little jaunt that was. My beloved Tiger Snakes (and I) feature in Episode 5: Pests. The title neither refers to myself or the snakes, but now that I know him better, it may well be referring to Will (cue smiley face and LOL).

Who would have thought...

..that standing still for a moment to watch cracks in a mudflat fill with water on the incoming tide could plant such a grin on my face. Imagine this image from two different perspectives: looking out at the 'landscape scale' to see the tide fill an inlet or estuary quite well illustrates the power of nature. But at the 'micro-habitat scale' the incoming tide turns the ecoscape on its ear: every day, twice a day, what was marine becomes terrestrial and what was terrestrial becomes marine. If you were a 'who' (cue Dr Seuss) your daily schedule would most certainly be dictated by nature. Who'd have thought that such a peaceful image could mask such a ferocious power.

Click here: Powerful Nature

Curious Nature

Sometimes when I am way out bush, and my mind is racing with all things business and a million other things to stress over, something will happen: it will be sometimes subtle and sometimes not so. But every time it happens, it reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive: I'm lucky to be me, lucky to have my wife and my awesome kids. I stop, look around me and sigh a long comfortable sigh.

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Curious Nature Part 1
Curious Nature Part 2