Posts in Category: lizard
Texas Spotted Whiptail!
I was on my way back to the car and the last day of the vendor hours at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, leaving the butterfly gardens at the National Butterfly Center in Mission Texas, when I heard a scuttling in the gravel that could only be a lizard. And there it was, a Texas Spotted Whiptail (as I afterwards confirmed). My second lizard of the trip. (The first was a Texas Blue Spiny Lizard seen from the tour boat on the Rio Grande River. And that, folks, is a lizard!). I like lizards, and the whiptails are so perky and, well, cute, there is a lot to like 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. Just over 1000mm equivalent field of view (I had to back off on the zoom to get the full tail in). f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And, since he was kind enough to scuttle around for a second view…from the other side. I am assuming the “spotted” comes from the legs!
Texas Blue Spiny Lizard
Our local guide for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival River Pontoon trip on the Riverside Dreamer alerted us early to her favorite part of the trip. It was an unassuming spot. An old pump station and a section of river bank reinforced with broken chunks of concrete and old truck and tractor tires. The boat slowed and drifted in closer, and sure enough, there were a couple of Texas Blue Spiny Lizards basking in the sun on the debris, a few feet above the water. The tbsl is very similar to the more common Collared Lizard of North Texas and the rest of the southwest, but is restricted to the Texas section of the upper Rio Grande Valley. In fact these specimens are south of their normal range. This gentleman is about 10 inches tip to tail…the largest lizard to inhabit Texas.
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. Cropped for composition. This was shot from a moving boat…which is testimony to the SX50HS’ image stabilization.
3/13/2012: Lizard at Cabrillo National Monument.
The rocks and paths at Cabrillo were alive with lizards when I visited the Sunday before last. I am definitely not a herps person. It is not that I do not like them. I do. It is just that I don’t know much about them. A little Googling leads me to believe that all the various lizards I saw at Cabrillo, and they were various, were in fact Fence Lizards in various stages of being and of various sexes. I like the way this one clung to his rock in the hope that I, if I happened to be a predator (he seemed uncertain on that point even if I was not) would not be able to see him. I also like the bokeh … the way the lizard is isolated against the out of focus background. And the texture of the rock is interesting as well. Lots to like here 🙂
Canon SX40HS at 1240mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 1.5x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/640th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity and sharpness.
2/22/2012: Brown Anole, Merritt Island NWR
In honor of Wild Life Wednesday, instead of just another bird, I will offer up this little Brown Anole, captured at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. I have taken pics of the native Florida Green Anole on these very same rocks, near the rest stop half way around Black Point Wildlife Drive, but that was in the spring. On this January day, the only lizard present was this little guy, certainly descended from illegal immigrants (or at least escapees) from Cuba or the Bahamas, but now well naturalized in most of Florida.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 1680mm equivalent field of view (840mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender). f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. 2) 840mm equivalent (cropped slightly) f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 125. 3) same as #2.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
5/2/2011: Green Anole, Ft. Matanzas FL
When I shot this Green Anole at Ft. Matanzas National Monument in Florida, I was assuming it was one of the non-native Anoles…escaped pets which breed all over Florida…but it turns out to the only Anole actually native to North America. An interesting creature. This one was after the husk of a bug of some kind which had fallen on the rail of the boardwalk at Matanzas. Interestingly, I attempted, without success, to photograph an Anole (not the Green) at this very bend in the boardwalk last year when I visited the National Monument. (Oh, I got pictures of it, but nothing I kept.)
Part of the success here is the new camera with its longer zoom and rapid fire mode…but mostly this Anole was just much more cooperative.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 810mm equivalent field of view. 1) f5.7 @ 1/200th @ ISO 180, 2) f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160, 3) f5.7 @ 1/160th @ ISO 220. User program for rapid fire and continuous focus.
Processed lightly in Lightroom, mostly for clarity and sharpness.