All right, the anole pics are piling up, though I’ve been trying to do posts on other things to break it up a little, but now it’s time to clean ’em out, for the brief period that this will last. We’ll start with a few from just this morning.
Going out to the greenhouse to open it up for the day, I found this little scene etched on one panel:
That’s condensation on the inside of the panels, disturbed by… somebody. Actually, the footprints and the tail tracks make it pretty obvious, but I like how the anole was disturbing it enough to throw water further down the panel. Here’s a closer look if you like:
Despite my best efforts, there are always a few anoles in the greenhouse – it doesn’t close tightly enough for them, plus they love scampering all over the outside. Since it can easily hit 40°c or more in there during the day if I don’t open the door and vents, it usually remains open while the sun’s hitting it, and they have plenty of opportunities to get inside even if they weren’t capable of slipping through the cracks The heat doesn’t seem to bother them, though I don’t know how much food they’re finding in there. But they especially like the pineapple plant:
So far, no hint of pineapples, but this has been going for a few years now after just sticking the cut-off head of a pineapple in a pot, so we’ll see I guess.
One colder morning, I noticed that a balancing bird decoration (The Girlfriend loves these) seemed to be sitting a little off-balance.
Now, this one is notorious for one of the birds gathering water within if it rains hard enough, collected through an opening in the rear, making us comment that “it’s time to express the birds.” But it hadn’t rained recently, so I took a closer look.
You can see the dew, and it was pretty chilly out, but if you look close you can also see a pointy bit around the nether regions of the far bird. Closer still:
Yep, there’s no portion of the sculpture there, and I’d suspected anoles were taking shelter within some nights – it could fit a dozen of them, but generally only one is clambering about on these at any given time. Anoles like climbing, so they took to the lawn sculptures instantly, and the dark color means they gather heat from sunlight pretty quickly. A flash shot shows things distinctly.
If they take to this after a rain, they’ll have their own little indoor pool, until we drain the birds again. In fact, this is our gauge of how hard it’s rained; a light rain won’t put any water within. A hard rain will deposit water in one of them, and a fierce storm will cause both to become reservoirs. It’s weird.
This one is in the process of molting, looking terrible but this will all be gone in a day or two. Snakes will shed their skin in one piece, or at least try to, but the anoles just shred it off in patches.
I missed a couple of good shots by not carrying the camera with me everywhere I go – you’d think I’d learn, but it’s hard to carry when you’re doing carpentry, you know? One of the anoles on the side of the house looked strange, and a closer look revealed that it had captured a wolf spider – the body was clasped firmly within the anole’s mouth, but the legs dangled freely on either side like a huge scraggly mustache. I ran to get the camera, but it was a floor away at the other end of the house, so it took a couple minutes. By that time, the anole had started gulping the spider down, as well as seeking a little more shelter:
The initial appearance would have been a great shot, but I suppose I’ll get another opportunity at some point.
In moments, all evidence of the spider was gone, even though it almost looked big enough to defy being swallowed, but this guy ate good for the day at least.
And finally, a quick grab shot as I passed, several days back.
This one was indeed up overhead, peeking from the roof edge, and the flash unit was already attached and fired up, so I got a nice, dead-on shot, with the flash bouncing from the white paint filling in the shadowed side of the anole’s face. I like it.
Okay, maybe we’ll go a few posts before we see more of these guys. Gotta look for more subjects.