Oh, hey, welcome…

I’ve got a lot of photos to edit for a major post coming up, but I happened across this a few minutes ago and had to feature it. Remember when I said that I’d like to get some Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) established in our yard here? Tsch!, of course you do – I apologize for insulting your recall, or insinuating that you haven’t read everything here. Anyway, this is what I found on a plant hanger, right alongside the front door just now.

Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis on upright plant pole in front yard
It’s a good-sized specimen, and even has a complete (and very long) tail, which is semi-rare. Normally they’re bright green, but change color to suit their mood and occasionally to blend in better with their surroundings.

The thing is, we’ve done nothing to encourage them here, nor even introduced one (at least knowingly, though we’ve added a lot of plants.) I actually reduced the appeal of this particular spot, because it used to hold a hummingbird feeder than the hummers seem to be ignoring, so I removed it recently. Not that anoles like hummingbirds, or even sugar water, but they do like ants, and ants like sugar water. Yet there are more than enough ants in that precise location, so the encouragement is already present.

Unfortunately, so are a few five-lined skinks, right within the bricks of the front step to be exact, which means two meters from this spot. Is either species going to get territorial? Hard to say, but I’ll keep my eye out. For now, I made sure that I got several frames of my buddy here hanging out, for which it was remarkably patient even though it showed it was well aware of my presence. Here’s a variation, shot against a shadowed background so the exposure went a little high, but going in tight still showed some nice eye detail.

extreme closeup of Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis eye detail
For some idea of the size, the entire head here is maybe the length of the top joint of your little finger, though in overall length the anole might reach as long as my entire hand, half of which is tail alone.

So, now we’ll just have to see if we see more of it.

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