lizards

Cellpic Sunday — Sunbathing Critters

Fandango8 Comments

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.

The weather around my area on the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area has turned almost summer-like. Today it’s supposed to reach 82°F and for the past three or four days it’s been hovering around the 80° mark.

Last week I posted a photo of a Tarantula spider in its spidey hole in my backyard. I had to sneak up to the hole so as not to spook the spider, causing it to disappear into the depths of its spidey hole. I used my iPhone’s 10x zoom lens and got a photo that showed the tarantula maybe about 2-3 inches deep in its hole.

But yesterday, in the 80° heat, I caught the tarantula unusually close to the surface and snapped this shot. I assume the spider was sunbathing.

And speaking about sunbathing, this fellow below was taking in the rays this morning, lounging around on the playset in our backyard that we have for when our grandkids come to visit.

The good news for the tarantulas is that our dog can’t get to them while they stay inside their spidey holes. Of course, come tarantula mating season, which runs from mid-August through mid-October, the males of the species come out of their spidey holes in search of a female. Once they’re out of their holes, all bets are off that some of them won’t succumb to our dog’s natural curiosity.

But when it comes to lizards, she is obsessed. We call her the lizard hunter and there seem to be dozens, if not hundreds, of lizards in our backyard. Most of them are so quick on their feet that they can scurry away from her before she pounces on them. But she has managed to catch a few this year. She doesn’t eat them but plays with them in a manner that those she does catch don’t survive. My wife and I feel bad for those poor little lizards.

WDP — Wild Critters Large and Small

Fandango19 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Do you ever see wild animals?
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My wife and I live only 35 miles east of San Francisco, but sometimes I feel as if when we moved here four years ago, we moved to Wild Kingdom. The photo above is one my wife took in our backyard in June 2021. Deer are very prevalent around these parts and we see them all the time.

It’s not unusual to see coyotes in yards and on the streets. We need to keep our eyes out for them when we’re walking with our dog, but so far, the coyotes we’ve run across seem pretty skittish.

Of course, there are those pesky scavengers, raccoons, that seem to be looking for scraps around, and sometimes in, our trash bins.

I have no personal experiences with bobcats or mountain lions, but a few of my neighbors swear they’ve seen them wandering through their yards.

And making appearances from beneath the surface of the earth are gophers and moles. The moles I don’t mind so much. Yes, they drill holes in the surface, but dine primarily on grubs and other bug thingies in the ground. But gophers feast on the roots of shrubs and plants, killing them.

And finally, at the other end of the “wild” spectrum who inhabit our yard:

Leapin’ Lizards

Fandango16 Comments

We have lizards in our backyard. The photo above was taken of one our lizard friends last summer. Now that the weather is getting warmer, these critters are crawling out from under the rocks (or wherever they have been hiding during the cooler months) to sit out on said rocks and bask their little cold-blooded asses in the warm sun.

Earlier this month, we brought home a rescue dog from a kennel and it seems that she is obsessed with lizards like some dogs are with squirrels. When we take her out in our yard, she immediately starts looking around for any lizard who dares to show itself. And then she leaps after it.

Fortunately, she hasn’t been fast enough to actually catch one. Not yet, anyway. In the meantime, though, maybe we should have named our dog Annie, after Little Orphan Annie, whose catchphrase was “Leapin’ Lizards.”