"All That Wriggles Is Not Worm" Illustration

All around and inside our house is gecko territory and they do a good job of turning insects into poo pellets that smatter the window sills and pepper the floors. They are lively little creatures that surprise the hell out of me when I draw open the curtains and one lands on my arm or head.

Then the magpie-robin is our most trusting avian companion who follows me around the garden waiting for my rootling to disturb anything edible. They will eat just about any animal small enough to swallow whole but I didn't realise until recently that they also have a taste for geckos. The problem is that most geckos are a bit too large for them to swallow.

Quite often in the early morning our pair of robins will be scouting the buildings for any geckos that have not yet scuttled into hiding after their night's foraging around the lights. If they catch one it either becomes a quick snack or a gruesome sight. The snack happens when the bird gets hold of the gecko by the tail which is immediately jettisoned. That's a great trick to have up your sleeve. The tail will carry on wriggling for a minute or so and give the gecko a good chance to escape. Over the next few weeks the tail regrows but does so without the bones that the original tail contained.

The gruesome bit is when the robin grabs the gecko by the body or head. The tail might fall off but the robin is only interested in the part in its mouth which is usually too big to swallow. Without a beak or claws built to tear its prey apart it thrashes the gecko around beating it against the ground or a wall or a tree-trunk or our car. After a quick bashing it pauses to see the state of the gecko. If it moves it gets another bash and if it doesn't move but hasn't fallen apart yet then it also gets another bash. The bashing can last for several minutes until the gecko's body is ripped into smaller pieces or its insides are splattered around enough for its body to fit down the robin's throat. It's not a pleasant thing to watch although it is fascinating for anybody interested in the thrilling side of nature on a small scale.

The illustration I made above is where the gecko does its tail-dropping trick and learns a valuable lesson about hiding before the robins wake up. I did not fancy trying to draw the more violent scenario.