We have two adult blue tongued lizards that live in our yard – one out the front and one out the back. They like to live in the drainage pipes that capture the storm water run off, although the one that lives out the front will come into the garage when it is very hot. We usually figure out that it is in residence because the cats will refuse to enter the garage. The blue tongued lizard hisses at them and they keep out of its way.

Our first sighting of a younger blue tongue was at the back of our yard when we were doing some work on the cubby house. It was in a good spot where it was in the sun but could hide away easily is frightened. It disappeared quickly, then reappeared later, when I could take this photo.

Then later the same night, one of our cats came out of the garage meowing that he had caught something. This cat catches any lizards that he finds in the garage, usually Asian House Geckos which are an introduced species.

The cat has been determined to teach our human children how to properly hunt, and the fact that he’s been trying this for five years without success has not deterred him. Before we had our children, he’d bring us stubby coolers, which I definitely preferred to lizards!

I looked up expecting to see another gecko, then I saw that he had a small blue tongued lizard in his mouth. I jumped up and grabbed the cat, which startled him so much that he let the lizard go. We were very worried about our little lizard buddy at first, but once we’d shut the cats away, he recovered enough to circle around and hiss at us. I was so relieved that I cheered for him. You can see in the photo that he still has his mouth open, ready to hiss at us some more. Luckily we managed to get him outside without traumatising him, and let him go in a corner of the backyard where he can find a safe hiding spot.