Crazy field trip
Today was quite a day. I went to the field in the Arava valley to try to catch lizards. It all started about 2 km from Sede Boqer, when a white stork decided to saunter across the road in front of me. I had to do some defensive driving to avoid hitting it. Crazy bird.
When I got to the field site, it was still relatively cool - 22C or so, but then it was only 9:30am. I looked around for the 3 Uromastyx we had marked, but didn't see them. I had seen a couple of other males out basking, so I went up to a burrow to set a trap. When I got there, I put down my stuff and got the trap ready. I looked over at the burrow and saw a large, spiny tail sticking out. Uromastyx usually disappear deep into their burrows, which can be a meter deep and 10m long, so I was pretty surprised. I quietly came up to the burrow and grabbed his tail. Now, when I was working with Sauromalus, I could grab the base of the tail, and pull for a while, and eventually the lizard would tire out. But these Uromastys are over 2kg. They're pretty strong, and the tail spines are sharp enough to shred bare hands (like the ones I was using to grab this lizard). After about 10 minutes of breathing dust, digging and pulling, I finally got the lizard out. Easy.
I managed to catch one other lizard, using the more conventional traps. When I went back to the car to drop it off, I noticed that the "easily caught" guy was pretty inactive in it's bag. Then I realized that was because there was no lizard in the bag. Apparently those sharp spines are sharp enough to rip open cotton bags, and he had escaped. So for the second lizard, I made a wire tether, stuffed his head into a bag, and tied him to the bottom of the car. No escape for this guy. Not much else happened the rest of the afternoon. Just a hot day (35C) of walking around in the desert sun, looking at lizards that disappeared when I was still 100m away.
On the way home, another strange thing happened. I was almost back to Sede Boqer when I had to slow down to avoid the camels crossing the road. Yup, camels. There were 5 of them crossing, and taking their time. There are big signs all over the place warning about camels on the road, but I hadn't come across any actually on the road before.
Weird day.
When I got to the field site, it was still relatively cool - 22C or so, but then it was only 9:30am. I looked around for the 3 Uromastyx we had marked, but didn't see them. I had seen a couple of other males out basking, so I went up to a burrow to set a trap. When I got there, I put down my stuff and got the trap ready. I looked over at the burrow and saw a large, spiny tail sticking out. Uromastyx usually disappear deep into their burrows, which can be a meter deep and 10m long, so I was pretty surprised. I quietly came up to the burrow and grabbed his tail. Now, when I was working with Sauromalus, I could grab the base of the tail, and pull for a while, and eventually the lizard would tire out. But these Uromastys are over 2kg. They're pretty strong, and the tail spines are sharp enough to shred bare hands (like the ones I was using to grab this lizard). After about 10 minutes of breathing dust, digging and pulling, I finally got the lizard out. Easy.
I managed to catch one other lizard, using the more conventional traps. When I went back to the car to drop it off, I noticed that the "easily caught" guy was pretty inactive in it's bag. Then I realized that was because there was no lizard in the bag. Apparently those sharp spines are sharp enough to rip open cotton bags, and he had escaped. So for the second lizard, I made a wire tether, stuffed his head into a bag, and tied him to the bottom of the car. No escape for this guy. Not much else happened the rest of the afternoon. Just a hot day (35C) of walking around in the desert sun, looking at lizards that disappeared when I was still 100m away.
On the way home, another strange thing happened. I was almost back to Sede Boqer when I had to slow down to avoid the camels crossing the road. Yup, camels. There were 5 of them crossing, and taking their time. There are big signs all over the place warning about camels on the road, but I hadn't come across any actually on the road before.
Weird day.
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