Praise Song for the Skink Who Has Gone to Ground

On YouTube there’s a video of a man pointing at a big rock. When he stoops to upend the heavy stone, his companion’s camera reveals an underground hollow where a broadhead skink is guarding her eggs. She is curled around them protectively. She does not stir when her secret is revealed. She will stay there until those eggs hatch.

The man shows us the skink and her eggs and then slowly sets the rock back down. He is taking care, but every time I watch this video I am worried for the far-more-careful mother skink. After the man puts the rock back in place, I want him to tell us that the skink is safe, that he has not crushed her in teaching us what a fine mother she is. I want proof the skink is safe.

But proof would require him to heave the rock up again, and more than I want to be assured that the skink is whole, her eggs unharmed, I want the man on YouTube to go away.