To sound another elegiac note: our gardens are rapidly becoming the last havens not just for the flora, but also for much of the fauna of the planet. I take it as symbolic of the bigger picture that my own garden, which began life as a bare, rubble-infested plot nearly 20 years ago, is an oasis of green in an area now besieged by concrete condominiums. If it is nowadays more jungle than manicured plot, it is at least home to birds, butterflies and bees.
My foray into local journalism began in 2009 with this newspaper’s predecessor, The Phuket Gazette, when I tentatively submitted my first effort. It was written under the heading of ‘Nature and Nurture’, and entitled ‘Birds of a Feather’. At the time, I figured I had enough material, if required, for maybe a dozen articles. Little did I imagine that that initial salvo would lead to several hundred pieces on gardening, the environment and natural history, and a guide entitled ‘The Tropic Gardener’. Throughout this marathon, I have been fortunate to have benefited from the cooperative endeavours of a number of editors, of whom Chris Husted, the present and longest-serving incumbent, has been a rock of reliability and good humour.
In a valedictory gesture, and perhaps spurred by a sense of nostalgia, I have revisited that flight of the egrets by printing the original text below.
Birds of a Feather
I am enjoying a sun-downer by the swimming pool. Overhead, in the gathering dusk, a flight of 20 or so white birds wing their way eastwards. I would call it a ‘skein’, but that collective noun applies to geese. These birds, though impressive, are different.
In fact, they are Cattle Egrets (bubulcus ibis), long necks retracted into hunched shoulders, legs stiffly astern in the manner of their relative, the heron. I can set my watch by them. It is 6.30. Every day at this time of year, they make their noiseless pass over the garden en route from feeding ground to nighttime roost.
We are lucky to have these elegant birds in Phuket. Many of their number, especially the Great Egret, were endangered by 19th century ladies’ insatiable desire for hat plumes. Indeed, their name comes from the French aigrette, meaning ’feather’.
We are doubly lucky to have them when you consider the Thai propensity for putting more or less anything that moves on their dinner plates. That these birds may take the odd fish doesn’t help their cause.
But Cattle Egrets are not primarily waders, and are useful to farmers as biocontrol agents. In Nai Harn there is an expanse of scrubland and grass. Once, I suspect, proper wetland, it is still traversed by a slow-moving stream.
Here you can see egrets perched on the backs of cows and buffalo, pecking at ticks, or following the grazing cattle as they disturb grasshoppers, frogs and the odd lizard. They forage alongside white-vented mynahs, a scruffy bird distinguished from its common cousin of beach and garden by its jet-black plumage and tufted crest. Unlikely lunch companions…
Lizard for lunch?
In fact, Phuket’s lizards provide a tasty morsel for some unlikely gourmets. Recently, I was at a loss to explain why the sun skinks (mabuya multifasciata) were putting in fewer and fewer appearances in their favourite flower borders. One day I discovered why. A golden tree snake (chrysopelea ornata) was wrapped around my papaya tree. The tail of a skink was protruding from its mouth; the rest had already disappeared down a serpentine gullet. This visitor normally moves like quicksilver; now, in his post-prandial state, he had as much get-up-and- go as a Victorian gentleman after a 10-course meal.
Some months earlier, the other lizards in the garden, fencepost agamids, had narrowly avoided a similar fate. They were at risk due to the national habit ‒ often borne of necessity ‒ of supplementing a monotonous rice diet with animal protein.
Long before the garden had taken shape, I was having a well sunk in my newly acquired plot. It was never finished as it happens, since the diggers en- countered a stratum of grey granite ‒ it is below the surface in much of Phuket ‒ that defied all attempts to mine it with dynamite. A hazardous business, since the explosives were not only temperamental, but illegal. So before each big bang, the diggers ran into the jungle and hid, only emerging after the explosion had sent a hail of rocky fragments flying in all directions.
Every day, the chief bombardier spent his lunch break catching these absurdly long-tailed fence lizards (calotes versicolor), reptiles so named after the adult male’s habit of displaying on walls.
I thought his snaring method ingenious at the time, but have since watched migrant workers use the same technique. He followed the paths through the head-high, secondary growth beyond the plot, armed with a long stick like a fishing rod. It had a fine nylon noose at the business end. Our friend knew, as every Thai schoolboy knows, that these lizards can change color to match their surroundings. They rely on this natural camouflage when disturbed by making an initial dash and then merging with their natural surroundings in reptilian stillness.
Once the creature had frozen, the hunter then dangled the lasso over its head, carefully lowered it and then quickly pulled it tight in the manner of a rabbit wire. Writhing and struggling like a hooked fish, the victim was unceremoniously dumped in a large plastic bottle.
Once work was over for the day, the lizard was spit-barbecued along with a dozen or so of his unfortunate fellows over an impromptu fire. There was precious little flesh, but the tiny, pathetic cadavers were consumed with relish. Let’s hope that Agamid lizards are not an endangered species. (They are not ‒ Ed.)
One possible crumb of comfort for green-minded readers. My Thai partner assures me that Phuket natives do not eat such things, that this is a barbarism indulged by people from Isarn or Myanmar or Vietnam, by non-southerners who think nothing of eating disgusting stuff such as fermented fish soup or fried beetles. And in truth, our lizard catcher did come from Udon Thani. But I still worry about the lizards…
Patrick Campbell’s book ‘The Tropic Gardener’, described in one Bangkok review as the best book on Thai gardening for 50 years, is available for B500 (half price) to personal callers from 59/84 Soi Saiyuan 13 in Rawai (Tel: 076-613227 or 085-7827551).
To enjoy more of Patrick’s writing, visit WordPress: Green Galoshes