When the Wildlife Goes Wild

I've mentioned before how we live in close proximity to the jungle and all the accompanying creatures. Monkeys hang out in the tree next to where we park our car, cicaks scurry across the living room walls in the evening (inspiring a book about their antics), and Angel continues to do battle with the fruit bat who lives in the hallway outside our apartment.

Lately, we've had a few interesting encounters with nature that I thought were worth telling you about.

Like when we were driving home a few weeks ago and saw this guy trying to get through the fence into the park that's next to our apartment complex.

Or, when Angel and the family went to visit a bigger park, one that has a swimming pool, and stumbled across two big monitors dueling next to the swimming pools.


Angel recorded the whole fight. Minutes 2-4 are the most dramatic, in my opinion, although the ending is pretty cool, too. I will warn you, the fight is a bit bloody. These big lizards mean business!

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For an update on our bat situation: After someone hung up a cd and netting in front of the neighboring apartment to deter the bat from roosting there, the bat moved in in front of our place. Lovely! Angel immediately went on offense, hanging up a cd and making nightly excursions with a broom to startle the bat away. Then he got a ladder and applied VaporRub all over the pipes and the ceiling in front of our house (Why? Because apparently VaporRub is the cure for everything, even fruit bats...I guess). After the liberal VaporRub application, the bat has slightly varied his roosting places, including a spot about 5 feet away front our home's entrance. He doesn't come at the same time every night anymore, though. Angel hasn't been able to startle him lately, but this week  I came home one evening to find a bat flying around between  our place and our neighbor's and I had to rattle my keys viciously to get him to go away so that I could in without the risk of the bat coming a little too close for comfort. I'm not sure who will win this battle in the end. I should probably google the lifespan of fruit bats in Malaysia.

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We went on a field trip to a butterfly garden last week, the sort of place where you expect to encounter quite a bit of nature, but I've never been to a butterfly garden where the butterflies were quite this friendly.

A few in our group had purposely worn brightly colored or floral shirts to encourage butterfly encounters, but these butterflies were landing on everyone! Nobody was safe! Little Joshua was rather disturbed by one butterfly who landed on his behind and refused to move for about ten minutes.

Can you see the butterfly on her hair bow?

This one landed on my leg and wouldn't leave me alone! I was beginning to understand how Joshua felt.

Even the cellphones weren't safe!

We loved the butterfly garden, but I always leave that place remembering how much I really, really, really don't like insects. Butterflies are pretty okay, but they have a whole lot of other bug exhibits there, including giant ants...that always leave me feeling very ready to leave by the time we are done.

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And, last wildlife encounter of note: We were driving to dinner when we turned down a neighborhood road and ended up in Fort Worth during a cattle drive. Or something.

The moral to these tales is: always be prepared. Never know when you might need to judge a wrestling match between monitor lizards, VaporRub your ceiling in order to persuade a bat to find a new home, or dodge cows wandering the neighborhood.