Lizard collection

It seems that the lizards that populate our yard are either Western Fence Lizards or Northwestern Fence Lizards. Time will tell if they are all the same or if we have two kids, as people ID them more. I was trying to take a photo of a flying insect this week and as I followed it across the yard, it flew right into the mouth of a waiting Western Fence Lizard. Snap and it was over for that insect.

[Find photo of eggs and lizard that was run over, baby lizard next to a pencil].

I have seen skinks here only four times. The first blue tail dove under some rocks to hide when I was weeding down by the mailbox. One used to live under the paver by the spigot under the kids' bedrooms. There was one earlier this year warming up on a rock in the rocky basalt hill toward town. the photo of the tail was out on the part of our hill that was the blueberry row. The last two places were ones my husband rearranged with an excavator--so I hope they were able to escape that danger and we'll see them again. There are now more rocks on the blueberry hillside and the blueberries have been moved into their own patch, so it should be better habitat for warming up in the sun, hiding below stone roofs and such from now on.

The alligator lizard was up in the middle of Tumwater Canyon. We were looking for rubber stamp boxes, which is similar to geocaching. It was in the rocks and talus on the side of the widest parking area at the side of the road that the rock climbers use. It looks like this is about as north as this type comes by the map associated with them, and the Wikipedia entry says the males have 3 types of polymorphism--something I will try to read about, because it didn't add much more to that interesting fact.

A trip down the road south of Vantage is where I found the Side-blotched Lizard. There was a big fire (summer 2018) and I wanted to see what the results were. I stopped at a road with access to the river and explored the beach. This lizard was under a Snowy Buckwheat and just sat looking at me (but it was a cool windy day for August, so maybe it was just cold).

Posted on July 2, 2018 02:53 PM by wenatcheeb