Dragon of the Water’s Edge

Sometimes the wildlife you don’t go looking for ends up being the highlight of the day.

I’d gone to Centenary Lakes Park mainly with one animal in mind — the platypus. I knew there was no guarantee of seeing one, but that was the hope as I wandered around the lakes.

The platypus, however, had other ideas.

There were still plenty of things to watch. A grebe was out on the water, along with the usual ducks, and I spent some time watching and photographing them. Then something else caught my eye.

A water dragon.

It was down in the water, so well suited to its surroundings that it would have been easy to overlook. Once I’d spotted it, though, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

I moved into a position where I could get a few photographs, and for a while its head was all that really broke the surface.

This was probably my favourite moment of the encounter. With the sunlight catching the side of its face and the rest of the water falling into deep blue, its reflection appeared almost perfectly beneath it. The spines, scales and dark markings around its face suddenly made the name water dragon seem particularly appropriate.

There was something almost prehistoric about seeing that head rising silently from the water.

I thought that might be my water dragon encounter for the day.

Then I moved only a few steps further along.

And there was another one.

This one wasn’t swimming or doing anything particularly dramatic. In fact, it looked as though it had mastered the art of doing absolutely nothing.

Stretched across a branch above the water, legs dangling loosely on either side, it seemed completely at home. I love encounters like this because they give you time to stop photographing for a moment and simply look.

And when you do, water dragons are extraordinary animals.

Up close, all those details become apparent — the individual scales, the row of spines along the head and back, the black markings behind the eye edged with yellow, and that wonderfully watchful eye.

I never did see the platypus.

But that’s one of the things I enjoy about heading out with a camera. You can start the day hoping for one particular photograph, but wildlife doesn’t work to our plans. Sometimes what you find instead turns out to be every bit as memorable.

On this visit to Centenary Lakes, the platypus stayed hidden.

The dragons didn’t.