Island Lizards
Our lizards amaze me. There are just so many of them.
And with all the mosquitoes, because of all the rain, deh gettin’ faht noh, meh son! I tellin’ yoh!
But we love them!
The poor creatures, though…..
They are eaten by just about anything bigger than them. They somehow manage to flourish.
On many an occasion, we have seen a kestrel or a pearly-eyed thrasher carrying a lizard back to a nest to feed its young.
Our cats eat them, our dogs eat them, and we have heard that other reptiles and amphibians eat them as well.
An educated friend had a college professor refer to small reptiles like them as “ecological popcorn”. They’re a fun and convenient snack for just about everyone. (And Mother Nature doesn’t even have an advertising budget!)
Yet they continue to survive.
Last year we had one hanging around our “dining table”. At first we called her “Lizzie”, but then we remembered the promise we had made to Michael’s boss and renamed her “Harvey”.
She’d always be around the table either keeping mosquitoes away from our ankles, or ants away from our food. After a while, she became so brave that she’d jump on a hand or an arm if she saw something she wanted. We started catching bugs for her and feeding her bits of what we were eating. We even set a little plate out for her.
We lost track of her, though, when we started preparing SunDog House. We went on vacation to my favorite BVI, and when we returned she was gone. We had a bit of “empty nest syndrome”. We worried, we lamented, but then we got busy.
We hope that her offspring will continue to evade the predators and keep dengue away.
June 26th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Our lizards do not usually traverse the top side of the deck railings. We have seen the various raptors swoop down – including Peregrines – to scoop them up.
With all this rain we need anything that helps keep the mosquito population down.
Has it been a whole month with no blue sky?
June 26th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Our lizards taste much better than your lizards according to my cat. She’s never eaten a Crucian lizard but that is her opinion.
June 26th, 2010 at 11:06 am
Love the phrase ” ecological popcorn”. And I too, feel awful when I see how discretionary they are on the food chain. Within the same species, I’ve noticed that some are much braver than others- your dining room lizard as example.
They inhabit the same places every day so I guess they’re territorial.
I’ve come to look for my favorites and leave mango and papaya for them. You’ve actually gotten them to jump onto your hand! Amazing.
The downside is the huge number of the large wood slaves ( as they’re known here ) that live hidden in my storm shutters: the perfect horizontal condo for an extended family. The poops are enormous and leave a perpetual trail on our gallery floor that I can’t keep up with.
My friend made a video of an anole that was fixated on one of my dogs and would climb all over her eating bugs. The lab seemed to not mind at all- have a one minute and 36 second peek- you’ll love it: Set to appropriate music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKb_WWKKx1E
June 26th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Wow, Lisa, must be very cool to see the raptors swooping down (not for the lizards, though).
Wreg. I don’t believe your ruint, overfed feline ever had to hunt for a lizard in her life.
I remember pictures from your blog posts of the lizard on Beamer, Bonnie. Thanks for the link to the video. Awesome!
BTW, we got lizard poop, we got frog poop, we got dog and cat and deer poop. Everybody’s gotta eat, so……