One of the strangest encounters I have ever had . . .

An aptly named snake if there ever was,  a Bandy Bandy (Vermicella annulata). Photo courtesy Amanda Ayre, © 2014 all rights reserved.

I had been interstate on a business trip during the week, and felt deeply restless.  It had been a very productive trip by any measure; I had kicked some major goals professionally and networked with some legendary people in my field.  More importantly, I had some profound insights into the way we do higher-level business and that alone was invaluable.  I was able to identify a few opportunities we can pursue in my area of responsibility to improve our services.  I will be implementing changes to take full advantage of them. The trip was an opportunity to learn, to develop professionally and best of all, it was fun.

As wonderful as things went professionally, I really missed my wife.  It was great to be back home and catch up on things.  Better still, we were going to spend the weekend together, camping in the bush.  Due to a couple of unforeseen things, our planned four-wheel driving and trout fishing trip to Barrington Tops had to be postponed and we spent the weekend at home.  That's no excuse to feel sorry for yourself though and so we decided to have a day trip somewhere.  The seasons are definitely changing, and we are now charging through Spring. The weather is becoming warmer and the humidity is slowly-but-surely increasing.  Summer is approaching and on Saturday, the air felt charged.  It felt like there was a change coming.

It was mid afternoon and clouds began to build very rapidly.  The light faded quickly and the afternoon became very dull and grey.  A decent storm had arrived.  Fat droplets of rain started to land.  The intensity built quickly and it rained hard for twenty minutes. The tin roof of our verandah was deafening and the gutters of the little garage overflowed.  Just as though someone had thrown a switch, the rain slowed and then stopped. The leaden sky brightened as the clouds parted and the light returned.  The day warmed noticeably and the humidity rose.  A cold front had definitely just passed over the area.  This was going to be a perfect evening to look for wildlife.

We chose Myall Lakes National Park for our destination on this trip, as it's a beautiful spot and home to some remarkable fauna & flora.  But I don't know if we will bother going back after Saturday night's experience.

I have been visiting the Myall Lakes National Park for over forty years now, and can hardly believe how degraded the experience has become around Mungo Brush.  To me Mungo is an outstanding example of how Australians can love an area to absolute death.  When I began to visit Mungo as a child, the road was unsealed and quite rough.  This had the effect of keeping speed down and minimised the number of visitors.  Over the years, I have noticed a distinct correlation between the roughness of the access road into an area and the number of ratbags you will find there.  It's no surprise that after the road to Mungo was sealed, the number of visitors absolutely exploded . . .

So what am I complaining about? Well, I know that things change whether you want them to or not and "progress" supposedly can't be stopped.  But Mungo Brush last Saturday night was only slightly quieter than the Pacific Highway.  Yes, OK, perhaps that's a minor exaggeration.  An area where I was once lucky to see three or four cars per night, we must have seen sixty.  Worst of all, there were at least ten cars that I considered to be herpetologists based on their behaviour.  They were slowly cruising up and down the road with people spotlighting out the window.  In an area that I would hardly ever encounter another herpetologist, this broke my heart.

Despite having a perfect weather window, and nearly ideal conditions on the night, we saw very little fauna.  I hardly had reason to wonder why.  Here's the night's list;

Bandy bandy (Vermicella annulata)
Banjo frog (Limnodynastes dumerilii dumerilii)
Bleating tree frog (Litoria dentata)
Blind snake (Ramphotyphlops nigrescens)
Burtons legless lizard (Lialis burtonis) 
Common eastern froglet (Crinia signifera)
Dwarf eastern tree frog (Litoria fallax)
Long necked tortoise (Chelodina longicollis)
Perons tree frog (Litoria peroni)
Planigale (Planigale maculata)
Rocket frog (Litoria nasuta)
Striped marsh frog (Limnodynastes peronii)
Tawny frogmouth owl
Tylers tree frog (Litoria tyleri)
Uperoleia spp frog (Its nearly impossible to identify this genus to species level from calls by ear)

I can hardly believe how little we saw.  And I could hardly believe how many probable herpetologists were about either, and this is a neat segue into one of the most disturbing experiences I have ever endured in the bush . . .

My wife and I had just found the gorgeous little Bandy Bandy featured in this post.  We'd watched as she crossed the road, and photographed her as she hunted through the vegetation on the road verge.  She stopped briefly on the fallen log, which gave us an opportunity to take a few nice images. Bandy Bandys are nocturnal and have a pretty specialised ecological niche - they are an exclusive predator of blind snakes.  They are also elapid snakes; front-fanged and venomous.  They have a reputation for being very inoffensive and from the few people that have sustained a bite from one, their venom appears to be mild.  That said, I do not trust any snake, and I would prefer to avoid getting bitten by any snake - even supposedly harmless ones.  Unless there is an essential need, such as removing a snake from a dwelling, I will not ever handle a venomous snake.

The Bandy Bandy's main defence is their colouration.  The black and white banding can be difficult to track in poor light due to the phenomenon of "flicker fusion".  Have you ever seen an old black and white spaghetti-western and noticed the way the wagon wheels seem to turn backwards?  That's the same effect.  If a Bandy Bandy was cornered and unable to escape, they will position their bodies in a unique way, raising their bodies in a distinct posture of loops before trying to flee as quickly as they can.  They will try anything to escape.  If anyone was ever bitten by a Bandy Bandy, you can bet they were handling it.    

Photographing the Bandy Bandy with an iPhone - to geotag the exact spot in the image metadata.  

We finished taking voucher photos and put Amanda's Nikon D750, soft-boxes and flash units back in the car.  We were laying on the ground taking a couple of quick iPhone photos.  We often do this simply to record the exact location for the Atlas of Living Australia (see http://www.ala.org.au). This because the iPhone uses its built-in GPS to geotag the exact position in the metadata of it's photos.  A white Holden Commodore cruised past. It did a quick U-turn and raced back to park next to us.  Grrr.  I don't like this already.  Four doors slam in the darkness and suddenly my wife and I are surrounded by four blokes, shining their lights in our faces.

This is just what I really didn't want - a quiet night with the wife and now I am surrounded by four strange blokes.  I can't see them properly and their intentions are unclear.  The hair on the back of my neck is fully raised, and I am listening to my instincts.  One or two people; no problem, probably just a couple of herpos out looking to see what's about just like us.  But FOUR people piling out of an old Commodore; this is not normal for herpetologists, and is starting to smell very wrong.

The first one rushes up to me, almost into my personal space, shines his head torch right into my eyes and says "you're Gavin Ayre aren't you?  Yeah, that's you.  Gavin Ayre."

WTF?  For some unknown reason, this person I've never met thinks it is acceptable to rush up to me uninvited in the bush at night. Then invade my personal space in complete darkness, blind me with a Led Lenser head-torch and then identify me by name.  Even worse, I don't recognise this person at all.

Who is this and what in the heck do they want?  How in the heavens so they know me and recognise my face - in the dark no less?  What in the bloody hell is going on here?

By this point, I've had just about as much of this as I can tolerate.   I am readying myself to defend myself and my wife.  I'm weighing up who is the biggest to take them down first.  I shone my head torch into their eyes to disorientate them and give them dancing spots in their vision for what might be a vital ten seconds or so.

"Who is asking?" I challenged belligerently.  I hoped you hear the warning - you blokes are way too close and I'm not sure what's happening here.

Space Invader stepped back and gave his name.  Means absolutely nothing to me - never heard of him.  How in the hell do you know me?  Supposedly recognised me from Facebook - something I have not used for the best part of two years.  Bloody hell, this person clearly has been spending w-a-a-a-a-y too much time on the internet cyber-stalking other people.  

When they saw the Bandy Bandy they started speaking my language - herpetology.  I relaxed.  It was just four blokes looking to see what was out and about.  Simply four completely socially incompetent amateur herpetologists, and in their excitement had rushed up to us uninvited to see what we'd found. For a few moments I honestly thought they were up to no good and this wouldn't end well.

From their utter lack of social mores, I'm guessing they were from Sydney and were camped in the area somewhere nearby. . .  Country people would know better than to rush up to someone that they didn't know at night.  And getting into a strangers personal space at night is an incredibly stupid thing to do.  

The boys told me they'd seen three other Bandy Bandys in the last few days and a few more interesting road kills.  Apparently one of the Bandy Bandys they had found had thrown loops for them, so they were probably just photographing wildlife.  Obviously they'd been in the area for a few days.

Close-up of the Bandy Bandy, Myall Lakes National Park, 1st November 2014.
Notice the creamy tinge on the first two bands on the snake's head.  All of the other bands were snow white. 

If they ever read this, I hope they stop and think just for a moment how their behaviour appeared to me.  It was not a very clever thing you did there fellas.  FFS if you had even a little bit of courtesy, you would have stopped at your car and ASKED IF WE MINDED four complete strangers joining us in the darkness.    

Simple common courtesy goes a long way.  If I ever bump into these four blokes again, and I'd say there is a very good chance I will, I hope that things will be a lot more cordial.