Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, before we ever arrived, someone or, I should say, two someones had already taken up residence here:

Lizard #1

And Lizard #2 (minus half of his tail??)

As it happens, we like lizards.  Also, as it happens, someone told us they LOVE eggs.  I’ve been attempting to get a photo of these two for a long time now.  And I just spent the last hour tempting and waiting, with camera in hand.  For a while I sat in a lawn chair and waited.  That didn’t work.  So I decided to attempt taking the photos through the kitchen window screen.  I discovered that if I leaned the camera right up close to the screen and put a little bit of zoom on, the pix came out clear enough to recognize the guilty parties!

The Tempation:

I laid my plans carefully and earlier this morning we found two eggs that were dirty on the outside that we just got in our purchase of farm eggs.  Yes — I could have washed them and used them, but heck, lizards don’t care if they are dirty or clean right?

These are actually on a little bit of a hill running my direction so that I didn’t have to do anything more than just stick the camera around the corner of the house to take the photo — but alas, I was never fast enough and they would see me and dive back into their home — which is an abandoned drain pipe about 3-4 inches in diameter.  I don’t see how the fat one gets in there, but believe me they do. I missed getting the photo of them together because they were so darn fast — right in the hole.

Okay — so back to the temptation.  I waited and, actually, as ridiculous at it may seem, I think I’ve waited about an hour checking to see when a head would pop out of the drain pipe and I could get my most valuable photos.  It happened.  I had stepped away to do something in the kitchen and when I looked out the window, there was Lizard #1 laying in the sun pointed directly at the delicious, delectable raw egg. . . . sitting there in plain view just waiting.

Then in the time it would take me to get the camera up there to the window, she had it in her mouth and had turned — whoa — don’t EVER try to outrun a lizard because it simply ain’t gonna happen!  And there she goes…..

Just to be fair, you need to know she didn’t try to take both of them!

See…….

Now, I just knew that Lizard #2 was going to come running right behind, but he just stayed there sunning himself and becoming very wary.  I suppose losing your tail would make you be that way!  In this pic he’s turning because he heard me at the kitchen window.

After I’d given him plenty of time (too much time as it turned out), I went back to the kitchen window to see if I could get a good photo of him approaching the egg and taking it away as she had done.  Well blow me down — it was already gone!  Sneaky and fast …….

and very cute.

So there you have it!  You might want to look around next time when you move into a new place and see who else thinks it’s home — you might just be pleasantly surprised!

Tchau for now.

 

I suppose I don’t need to share the stories of the other residents — we kill them pretty fast. (smile)