Friday, July 11, 2008

Skink Tale in Five Lines or More

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One afternoon, recently, there was a lovely visitor on the deck. Now I don't often think of reptiles as lovely, but the coloring of this five-lined skink cannot be described as anything else. The fact that he/she so nicely matched the flower pot was delightful. Look at his wonderful, feathery, blue toes on his back feet. The full-size (screen-size) picture shows them so well that it is disappointing to see the reduced effect here. Try clicking on the picture above to enlarge it.

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These guys are big bug eaters, preferring grasshoppers, but I had to wonder if its tiny brain might be considering the dragonfly on the pot. Or perhaps it was just a blue camouflage attempt. I doubt that many opportunities like this come along for blue lizards.

He/she hung around a bit, allowing me to take pictures through the glass door. Then, with a whip of a blue tail, it was  gone.

Many years ago, shortly after we were married, I was visiting at home when my dad showed me a large Australian pine that had come down in a windstorm. In the rotting wood in a hole in the trunk was a nest of skink eggs. I brought them back to Tallahassee and took them to the preschool where I taught. We kept them in a jar until they hatched. That is one of the more unusual animals I have kept at school.

1 comment:

Mary Lou said...

I LOVE your blog. You do a beautiful job on both the writing AND the photography! Can't wait to spend some more time browsing through it. Just sorry I didn't get back to it sooner.