{"id":31652,"date":"2022-04-22T02:37:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T06:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=31652"},"modified":"2022-04-22T02:37:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T06:37:27","slug":"dirty-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2022\/04\/dirty-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirty Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This wasn&#8217;t intentionally aimed for Earth Day, yet it&#8217;ll do, unless I find something else. As indicated in the previous post, I was slightly delayed in getting this out, given that it happened yesterday, but so it goes.<\/p>\n<p>While doing yard work yesterday, I came down the back steps and found this indelicate display right out there for all to see.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/RightOutInPublic.jpg\" alt=\"mating Carolina anoles Anolis carolinensis on iron gate\" width=\"750\" height=\"1125\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31653\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>These are, naturally, Carolina anoles (<em>Anolis carolinensis<\/em>,) and they&#8217;re engaged in&#8230; well, they&#8217;re apparently beyond engagement at this point, but this is how they mate. I mentioned just a few days ago that I had <a href=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2022\/04\/fulfilled-that-obligation\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">several goals concerning this species<\/a>, and this was one of them. I hadn&#8217;t wasted any time in grabbing the camera so I wasn&#8217;t fully equipped for video with tripod, microphone, external monitor, or even a longer lens, and thus what I captured was &#8216;on the fly,&#8217; but quite acceptable for that. Quality-wise, anyway &#8211; I can&#8217;t vouch for the views of any delicate souls out there. So yes, I did capture a handful of video clips to illustrate, though there admittedly wasn&#8217;t a lot to illustrate.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/701921725?h=881b8e25c8\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><br clear=\"all\"\/><\/p>\n<p>For what little I have here, I was out there for quite a while, determined to capture a complete display of courtship and mating should it occur. Given that I had already seen the mating, only a few minutes earlier, I was surprised to see the male displaying a short distance away from the female, until I realized that there were <em>two<\/em> females. Or so I surmise, anyway, because while both sexes can change their coloration this distinctly, typically the territorial display for males is <a href=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2020\/03\/drawn-to-scale\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">flashy green with other patches<\/a>, not brown. But what had happened in the short space while I wasn&#8217;t observing? Was either female the one seen initially? Here, I figured I&#8217;d leave them be while they conducted business, and this resulted in missing some part of the drama.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/FlauntingThePink.jpg\" alt=\"male Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis during courtship\/breeding display showing pink dewlap\" width=\"750\" height=\"991\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31655\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>The male spent a great deal of time scampering around on the fence, from the immediate vicinity to several meters away, displaying enthusiastically. The second female that appeared ever-so-briefly in the video remained completely out of sight, while the first took shelter and shortly reappeared, though circumspectly<strong>;<\/strong> I suspect this was from my presence. For my part, I picked a spot that had a decent view and held still, getting both too warm and more than a little achey from holding the camera higher. Not only that, but soon after starting video, the low-battery warning was flashing, typical when I start video because it uses the LCD for focusing and framing and this takes a lot more power. It&#8217;s one of the reasons that I have an external monitor &#8211; when I bother to have it attached.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing ever came of this whole secondary courtship, despite my observing for about 15 minutes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/TouchOfPurple.jpg\" alt=\"female Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis remaining unimpressed\" width=\"750\" height=\"1125\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-31656\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>From what I&#8217;ve seen of the species, they tend to be remarkably sharp-eyed, but I was never certain whether either could see the other &#8211; the female definitely showed no recognition of the male&#8217;s display, and the male never approached the female any closer than that seen in the video. Eventually, he gave up and took a position along a fence slat, his color fading closer to that of the fence as he appeared to get in a quick nap.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, I&#8217;m <em>still<\/em> not sure if this is my imagination, but the female here seems to show a hint of purple in her coloration. Is this typical, and I&#8217;ve never noticed it? Is it sparked by the proximity of the flowers? (I&#8217;ve once again forgotten the species.) Are my eyes shot? Tune in next week &#8211; we won&#8217;t have the answers then either, but perhaps there will be something else of interest.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, as of this brief video upload, I believe I&#8217;ve reached my free limit on Vimeo, and will have to give them some money to host anything further. This isn&#8217;t a hint or anything &#8211; just observing. Gosh, sure are a lot of cool videos up here though, with fancy title cards and everything. Pretty classy for free content, you know? Not that I&#8217;m saying anything&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This wasn&#8217;t intentionally aimed for Earth Day, yet it&#8217;ll do, unless I find something else. As indicated in the previous post, I was slightly delayed in getting this out, given that it happened yesterday, but so it goes. While doing yard work yesterday, I came down the back steps and found this indelicate display right [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,3809],"tags":[531,5483,4081,6193,6714,5402,6715],"class_list":["post-31652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","category-video","tag-anolis-carolinensis","tag-breeding-display","tag-carolina-anole","tag-courtship","tag-dewlap","tag-mating","tag-the-nasty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}