Chapter 4

After about twenty minutes, Al said, “You’re not very loquacious.”

“I’m the most junior. This is my first group trip. I’m wary.”

“Hmmm. Did Lois visit?”

“Pardon?”

“Lois is an active group participant. She’s got a rep.”

“I’m not a notch for her belt.”

“I was, years ago. I’ll admit, I’d happily enjoy her again. But I hear she now plays for a different team.” We walked a bit further.

“Is that rocks? Or a mirage?”

“Let’s move a few degrees right, so we get a different angle, and see what it looks like.”

“I note Lois and Aggie share a tent.”

“Oh. Aggie’s a mum. I’ve met her husband. That’s a great story.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, Dirk is into salt marshes. An’ he was in the Knuckey Lagoons...”

“Where?”

“Near Litchfield in the Territory.”

“Oh.”

“An’ he meets this sheila looking at the snipe. That was Aggie. An’ he tells her he seen a yellow chat. She says this is out o’ their range. And he says, snarkily, that mebbe nobody tol’ him where he wuz s’posed to be. So, to cut it short, he walks her a ways in the muck. An’ there’s the yellow male an’ a female an’ a nest with a coupla eggs. So Aggie carefully steals an egg and they walk a bit to a drier hummock. An’ Dirk takes her there. But Aggie got her degree and credit fer a new subspecies ... an’ her MRS degree. And she’s not even in ornithology!”

“Great story. Looks like mirage, not rocks.”

“No rocks. But there’s a few trees.”

“STOP!”

“What?”

“Just stop. Turn and walk towards me. Don’t stop ... OK. Turn and stand in my shadow.”

“What’s up?”

I picked up a small stone. “Watch.” I tossed it at a brownish spot on the red sand. There was a flurry and some dust. Something fled.

“What was that?”

“Al, you’re one of the few naturalists to have seen a Western Desert Taipan [Oxyuranus temporalis], an extremely dangerous snake that can grow up to 170cm in length. We can tell Reg about it, but I doubt he’ll try to catch it.”

“Well, thanks for getting me clear.”

“Let me tell you a story. In 1950, Kevin Budden, an amateur, was one of the first people to capture a taipan alive, although he was bitten in the process. He died the next day.”

“Seriously?”

“Really. I was born and brought up in Queensland, just a few hours from two locales where taipans are still found. Budden was trying to bag his catch and it bit his thumb. They injected an antivenin, but to no avail. I never guessed I’d see one in the Western desert.”

“Well, you saved my life.”

“Yeah. Anyway, those aren’t trees, just shrubs. The hot air distorts the way they look. But just to the right of them, I think that blur might be spinifex ... or triodia ... Aggie’d know.”

“She’s got a rep, too, ya know.”

“A rep?”

“Apparently, she spends a lot of time far from her husband. But she’s no fookin sheila. Bloke I know in Berrimah says she can suck a golf ball up a garden hose.”

“TMI. You guys gossip like old ladies! Let’s head for that grass, And watch your feet!”

I’d have to tell both Lois and Maggie what I’d learned. Maybe they didn’t care. “Stay there!” I said.

I had put gloves in my hip pocket. I put one on as I moved forward and a bit to my left. Then I bent over and grabbed. “Got it!”

“What?”

“Urodacus yaschenkoi – desert scorpion. Male, I’d guess. I’ll check later or tomorrow. Let me get a large bottle out.” Using my other hand I fumbled in my bag. “Open this, please.” Al did and I released the prey, then screwing the lid tight.

“Nasty beast.”

“Painful sting, but not fatal. I wonder what he was hunting for. Urodacus feeds mainly on arthropods such as ants, beetles, cockroaches, spiders, and centipedes. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“OK. Let’s go.”

We walked a bit further. “We’ll have to be wary. Rather, I’ll have to be wary. That snake really got my wind up.”

“Just be cautious.” It was now obvious that the grass was in tufts. “Will the spinifex be of interest to you?”

“Yes. But we’re too far inland for it to be spinifex.”

“Oh?”

“People say ‘spinifex’ to refer to several Australian grasses with stiff sharp leaves. Usually the grasses are Spinifex or Triodia. Triodia is a large genus of hummock-forming bunchgrass that’s endemic to Australia. But the two genera are known by the common name spinifex, although they are not a part of the coastal genus Spinifex, which occurs in Africa and Eurasia, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Triodia is native to here and New Zealand.”

“That’s far from zoology!”

“Gotta know what lives where and eats what. You saw that taipan, that’s a vertebrate.”

“Self-defense.”

Al laughed. “Right. Well the scorpion’s an invertebrate at least!”

“True.” We got near the hummocks. “Careful now.”

“I know. I’m hoping for a burrow or two.”

“If you note any small holes, they might be ants, spiders or snakes.”

“Or even a bilby colony.”

“That would be a larger hole.”

“But ... look!”

“What?”

“That greyish-brown area under the edge of the grass.”