Broome Bird Observatory August and part of September 2020

Still the same wardens as last time Nyal and Jane, but different assistant warden a young lady named Matia who comes from the Gibb river road area.

Because of Covid 19 and the lockdown in Broome the Bird life committee for here had to let the other assistant go -Luke , he left before we got here.

The committee could only justify paying Nyal as its a not for profit organisation and not many tours and people staying here to bring in money.

Jane got a job teaching in Broome for the 5 weeks we were here and her and Matia managed to get on the Govt plan and Matia had to get job keeper allowance.

To help with the work when things started to pick up a bit with people from WA being allowed into Broome area they got a young Brazilian girl as a volunteer. As Jane had to teach in Broome Her name was Malyna and she had only a few weeks left on her Visa. She worked here for a place to stay . She was a good worker too, they tell me her farther got sick and died after we left so I hope she got to go home and see him in time.

Larry got to see lots of shore birds and provided lots to the bird log held every night. Which is a record of all birds sighted in a 70km radius of here and has been kept for over 30 years.

I do like to see birds but but not actually walking around just looking for them . I look for th butterflies , reptiles and mamals as we walk.

So we do our cleaning and I make all the cleaners and room deodorisers again which are all natural.

Then we walk around looking at things. And help to clean rooms and anything that they need help with.

We had 10 people come to do a course on shore birds. They get accommodation, food and all tours and presentations included in their fee.

When they arrived or where picked up in Broome from flights their first meal is lunch which Larry cooked BBQ and I did salads.

So I ended up doing a lot of the cooking and Larry did the helping on the tours.

They get breakfast, morning tea, Lunch , afternoon tea and Dinner. I am glad the afternoon tea was fruit which we only had to cut up. The young Brazilian girl and I cooked most of the morning teas and lunches and we did 3 dinners .m

Jane and Nyal the wardens did the breakfast which was usually help your self toast cereal the usual.

We had a Mulga snake come through camp and into the ladies adventure toilets. Mulga is known as king brown even though it is not a brown snake but a member of the black snake family, it is also one of Australia’s most venomous snakes. It was looking to make a meal of a green tree frog from all the frogs in the adventure toilets.

I usually showered in these showers as they have more room and air circulating as they are more open with congregated tin walls that have a gap at the bottom and at the top before the roof.. so things like lizards and snakes and of course the tree frogs can get in and out as they please.

A few days latter I was having a shower and I saw a tail in between the wall and door frame close to the light switch. well I grabbed clothes and went to get my camera , I usually carry it but had forgotten it this time. Larry came back with me with his camera too.

When we looked more closely a foot appeared so it was not a snake , but a beautiful freckled monitor lizard all of total length 56 cm in this little tiny gape. They apparently hide under loose bark on trees they are small and well marked. We had not seen one before so it was only after looking in books did I find what he was.

We found him again the next day in the tree next to the door into the shade house and took more photos.

I had to check in the books to make sure of what monitor it was because we had not seen it before.