Lizards in sunshine

A couple of weeks ago, we saw the first lizards in the garden for this year. It was great to see them again. Last year, we had at least 6 lizards in my wildlife patch at one time, plus some others elsewhere in the garden. Well, this year, I have seen 3 together at any one time, and they were certainly enjoying some afternoon sun. The weather has actually been pretty poor here over the last week or so, but the lizards in the photos in this post were seen a couple of weeks ago.

The Common Lizards which we see in our garden tend to sit in the sun near some sort of cover. In the case of these lizards, they like to keep to the little open areas of soil or wall which are surrounded by tall grasses in my patch. The first photo below shows a lizard which I was able to get quite close to. I was able to use the macro mode on my camera here.

The photo below was taken a bit further away from the lizard but seems to capture the light better.

Sometimes, when it clouded over (as in the photo below) the lizard still sat there as if it were waiting for the sun to come out again.

Two smaller lizards (probably young ones) were sat quite deep in the long grass and didn't appear to be getting much sunlight because they were shaded so much. I find it amazing how they are able to keep so still for so long. When these creatures do move, however, they really do move fast. There could well have been more lurking around in the grass, but they would have been very hard to see with the constantly growing plants covering then up.

Its always great to see lizards about the garden and it reminds me of summer. Hopefully I will be able to see 6 of them again this year. The lizards in our garden are attracted by areas that are left scruffy. So just think, you could be helping to provide a habitat for lizards by not weeding an area of your garden. Its a no-brainer really!