5 Tips for Backyard Blueys!

You might be surprised to learn that even in built up environments you can find animals like blue- tongue lizards living happily in suburban backyards. 

The suburban blue-tongue lizard 

In our garden, over the space of a year, I have encountered as many as seven individual blue-tongue lizards and photographed them. Some of these animals have been residents of the backyard (I've either photographed them numerous times, or discovered them using the same refuge for weeks or months at a time). Others may use the yard as a natural corridor; passing through whilst they search for food or mates. 

Being ectothermic (cold-blooded) you are unlikely to see them during the colder months. But in the Spring, I see more individuals and generally encounter them frequently with the most active months being August and September. This also coincides with the breeding season. Most years we are lucky enough to see baby lizards in January. 

It's a terribly rewarding experience to discover wildlife such as lizards living in your backyard. And so, here are my 5 tips on how to create a backyard habitat suitable for the blue-tongue lizard. 

1. Provide them cover

These lizards have long heavy bodies with short stumpy legs, and so they simply cannot move with great agility or speed. Give them a fighting chance against a quicker more agile predator by providing them with plenty of cover.

Blue-tongue hiding in hollow log

Shelter them with dense planting your garden beds. Mulch and deep leaf litter is not only good for the garden, but also great for secretive blueys. Provide hides with hollow logs, but please don't collect these from natural areas. Keep in mind too, that a great refuge doesn't always have to be natural, half overturned terracotta pots or a bit of plumbers pipe buried with the ends exposed work very well as hidey holes and tunnels for lizards in your garden.

2. Feed them

Looking to pinch my tomatoes

I'm not suggesting you leave food out for lizards, but if your garden has plenty of plants and good soil, you almost certainly have insects, worms and snails, yum! Fruit bearing trees will also encourage lizards and other wildlife. A word of advise, if you don't want the lizards getting all the good strawberries, grow them in a tall pot.

I am a firm advocate for organically grown, and would encourage everyone to garden without chemicals. Fertilisers, poisons and baits are destructive elements to use in the garden, and can harm and kill insects and the animals that eat them, including blue-tongue lizards.

3. Warm them up

Baby who was poking around the compost heap

Lizards are ectothermic and will habitually seek out heat sources. Have you ever seen a turtle basking on a rock? It's not trying to improve it's tan, but rather using the sun's energy to warm its body. Lizards often do the same thing. Put a nice flat rock in a part of the garden that gets some morning light and you might be rewarded with basking lizards that are a joy to behold.

Other sources of heat may come from decaying matter such as deep litter or a rotting compost heap. Their thermal requirements, will lead blueys to various parts of the garden. We once had a small blue tongue lizard domiciled between the house and the hot water system. It lived there for almost a year, before eventually outgrowing the space.

4. Offer a drink

Have you ever heard the saying, flat out like a lizard drinking? Boy can these lizards down a coldie! For those of you who haven't seen a bluey having a glug, their tongue is much like a dogs as it laps and laps and laps water. Especially on a hot day a lizard will gratefully have a drink from a small tray of water left on the ground in a place close to a refuge. If you have a pond or a planning one, ensure the sides are not too steep as plenty of thirsty lizards (and other wildlife for that matter) fall into ponds and pools with smooth sides and are drowned.

5. Watch out for them

Blue-tongue warming up on tiled driveway

There can be hazards for lizards in the garden too. Dogs and cats can easily dispatch lizards in the garden, so be mindful and investigate when your dog starts barking suddenly, you might just save a life! When mowing long grass, it's best to walk through it and check for animals that may be hiding. Before backing your car, it's a good habit to check that there are no sunning lizards on the driveway, and while I'm on the topic of cars, generally avoid running anything over on the road. Often lizards and snakes can look like twigs, or a bit of old rubber.

A garden is a much more interesting place when you know you might spy a blue-tongue lizard shuffling, nose down through the leaf litter. And so, with these 5 easy tips we're confident you'll 
encourage a true blue little aussie; the blue-tongue lizard into your very own backyard.


True Blue Reptiles are committed to conservation. It is our greatest hope that through our reptile encounters we can inspire and enthral and help promote a greater understanding of nature's gifts. Passionate environmentalism starts early; inspire your children with True Blue Reptiles Mobile Reptile Parties 

Lake Broadwater Trip

In October last year (2014), the True Blue Reptile team took a short camping trip 3 hours West of Brisbane to Lake Broadwater Conservation Park. The lake is the only naturally occurring body of fresh water in the Darling Downs district, and so is of particular significance for wildlife, namely birds.

     We made camp in the 'Wilga Bush' area which was quiet, despite the fact, the lake camp was brimming with long-weekenders. A 2 km bush track from camp brought us to the northern edge of the Lake as seen in the photo below. Small gums inundated by the lake serve as great perches for thirsty afternoon birds. Or so we thought, as it happens Lake Broadwater is also a popular spot for water sports. We sat patiently waiting for the skis to call it a day, but the obnoxious boat towing didn't let up until dark (you can see the ripples made by boats). Needless to say, we saw very few birds this first evening.

The river red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) in places around the lake are extremely old, and littered with hollows. During our morning bird walk we observed plenty of parrots and cockatoos flirting in and out of the hollows and making plenty of noise. There were more corellas then you can poke a stick at; too many actually. I surmised that due to the number of habitat trees and the extensive agricultural land surrounding the lake the number of cockatoos is in fact quite excessive, I'm sure the farmers would agree. They definitely made bird watching difficult too, they are deafening in large flocks so it's impossible to listen for other bird calls. Furthermore they are nervous creatures here, screaming their alarms as we try to sneak through the bush, alerting other animals in the area of our presence. So far the bird watching had been rather ordinary.
     On the way back to camp I set some sand traps (below) just for fun.

That next evening we took the bird watching south, to the protected side of the lake, and made a more respectful attempt at bird watching. While bird watching we threw our lines in to catch the nameless beasties that had been brushing up against us as we swam in the lake.  Along with some smaller fresh water fish, we caught giant European carp. 

The mammals that we saw during the day included; dingos, pretty wallabies, eastern-grey kangaroos and hares. The tracks (above) we caught in one of our sand trap. The footprint with the claws in the top right hand side may have been made by an echidna.

Our nocturnal escapades were quite exciting and we saw lots of different animals, but the snake seen here (one of two individuals we encountered) was definitely the highlight of the trip. This rare little snake was only as thick as one of my fingers and about 40 cm long. The photo below shows the beautiful markings on their face which is their namesake; this is the pale-headed snake Hoplocephalus bitorquatus. 

Here are some photos of the frogs we found. Above is an ornate burrowing frog Limnodynastes ornatus. These frogs spend most of their lives underground, they emerge after rainfall to find mates. Although these frogs are relatively common on the Gold Coast also, I find them particularly delightful. The frog below is a broad palmed rocketfrog Litoria latopalmata. These belong to the tree frog family, however latopalmata does not climb trees. Unlike the fat sturdy frog (descriptions written with much affection) above, this rocket frog goes well...like a rocket and wouldn't sit still for a photograph, and so we decided to catch it. You may have also noticed that I am wearing gloves while handling this frog. This is because frogs (unlike reptiles) have permeable skin, and are particularly sensitive to chemicals on our hands. The yellow colour of the thigh is a distinguishing characteristic of this species. Desert tree frogs are another species we saw and heard each night. 

In addition to the snakes and frogs, we were hopeful to find the rare golden tailed gecko. After hours of searching amongst the cypress forest we were unsuccessful, however we did see brush-tailed possums, volplaning (gliding) sugar gliders and a couple of other common geckos like the one below. This naughty gecko found in the ladies toilet block is a Gehyra dubia. This lizard is considered fairly ordinary and doesn't even have a local name!  

There are many lace monitors Varanus varius that call Lake Broadwater home. This one pictured left, is a different colour variation known as a 'Bell's phase'. Unlike the typical lace monitor, this bell's form has large black and yellow bands across the body. This is the first time I have encountered a bell's phase lace monitor in the wild.
     Our bird species list for the weekend at Lake Broadwater ended up totalling 58 species. One bird; the White-throated treecreeper, while considered relatively common is in fact a species that I had never seen before and so even though our list is a little thin this trip, seeing a new bird was quite worthwhile.

Did you know that Sarah Jane has over 4 years experience as a tour guide, and has a passion for bird watching? Think you might like to hire an interpretative guide? Give True Blue Reptiles a call, we love getting back to nature!