The end of May is creeping up on me and I’m short on posts this month. Do not want to break my multi-year streak of hitting my monthly blog quota, so look for several more posts to come bursting your way this week. The good news is Ron and I were able to get a break from all the ordeals with our mother’s passing. Did some birding at Montrose Beach (Chicago) and several places around Chain ‘O Lakes State Park. Extremely productive for our “Average Year” tallies and even managed to set a record for our one day unique species count (62). A summary of that effort will be coming as soon as I can process the 110 gigs of images from the two day haul. As for today, thought I would continue with the “lime green” theme from the last post.
Surprise, not a bird ha! This happens to be a Lizard we discovered last year while Ron and I were birding Dauphin Island. Hmmm, discovered might not be the best choice of birds – more like the Lizard that “revealed” itself to me. Unlike my wife, I am quite fond of the members in the reptile family. Only variable is how close I am willing to get to a particular specimen. Definitely not one to go running head first into a door frame if the slithering kind pops out of a grill cover (link here). If you are wondering, Lizards do not get a pass from Linda either – as she puts it “just Snakes with legs”. So glad she wasn’t with us when this walking neon sign came out to greet us.
Hit the jump to see more of our lime colored friend.
At first notice, I was very concern about how long it was – for a rather small Lizard it just kept squeezing out of the surrounding vegetation like an endless tube of green toothpaste with turquoise eyes. Finally saw its back feet and then stood there with my mouth open waiting for the end of its tail to be fully exposed. Ended up halfway out in the road just trying to fit it all into The Beast’s field of view. One of the few times at Dauphin I could have used a wider angle glass! Now that the creature was fully exposed and the threat assessment was re-evaluated down to nil, I was able to comfortably move in and get a better look at this brightly colored tree hugger.
After a bit of research, determined this Lizard is a Green Anole. Very Gecko-like if you ask me – wonder how it would do selling insurance? Learned that they can grow to around eight inches long from nose to tip of tail (trust me, they look longer in person). The tail is actually 70 percent of their length. I can also confidently identify this as a male Anole. According to a reference on the web, the females have a white stripe down their back. Nope, no line here.
According to Wiki, these Green Anoles can see a wide range of UV spectrum. Guessing they would go absolutely crazy with all the UV light we pour down on the haunted trail every year (link here). Get this, they also say the Anole can change its color (ranging from a brown shade) “depending on its mood, level of stress, activity level and as a social signal” – read that as turn bright green right before attacking Ron hehehe. Note, unlike Geckos, they don’t change their hues just to blend into surroundings. Is anyone else getting the distinct feeling they know a lot about how this creature thinks and it doesn’t even speak English…just saying.
Anyway, just wanted to quickly introduce you to another find while we were at Dauphin. I am bracing for when Linda reads this post…we may not be going back to that island after all!!
Life Intrigued 