Visitors of all shapes and sizes....

We've had some interesting visitors at our place lately.

The first has become a regular who you may have read about before...

Georgia has befriended a few young deer, these being the smallest...

They are equally curious of one another...(not the best photos...taken with my iphone)

And here she's sharing a bowl of water we put out for the deer because of the drought and heat...

Then the other evening I was looking for something in the grass when I spotted this little creature...

 She/he is a  Northwestern Alligator Lizard, here's a few facts about them...

                                                     Scientific name: Elgaria coerulea principis                                   

The Northwestern Alligator Lizard is a short-legged, long-bodied lizard, with a triangular head (bearing little resemblance to an actual alligator!).  Growing to a maximum of 20 cm in total length, their size and colouration make them quite cryptic.  Adults usually are brown in colour with a pale belly.   Occasionally they sport dark blotches or a broad bronzy stripe down the centre of the back.  Upon close examination, you might see a fold of skin running down each side.  This allows the body to expand when the lizard is breathing, full of food, or in the case of females, full of eggs.  Juveniles often are more metallic looking, with black sides and a bronze back.

Alligator Lizards are very secretive; their first defence is to flee and hide.   If caught, a lizard may release a smelly mix of feces and musk, bite, or even ‘release’ (autotomize) its tail.  The dropped tail acts as a decoy, distracting the potential predator.  Over time, the lizard will regenerate a shorter, fatter tail.   As the tail is an important fat reserve, tail autotomy usually is a tactic of last resort.   As evidenced by the number of lizards with regenerated tails, however, it also is a successful tactic.

I took these photos while it just sat there sunning itself in the evening light...

 I love their little mouth and their head looks like a snake.

I noticed afterward while looking at my photos that it was missing a toe!

...there's that tail that can break off... 

 I've written about visits from them before here and here.

Our other recent visitor is this guy...

It took a few attempts but I finally got a pretty good picture of him.

He's a Long Eared brown bat.

Can't you tell where they get their name?

Look at those ears!!

We found him while we were working up in the loft of our barn.

They feed on moths and have a pretty decent set of teeth from other photos I found on the web.

So there you go...a few of our furry friends that live around here.

All creatures great and small.

Two surprise visits!

Today while i was out in the garden I had a surprise visit from my aunt and uncle

who were out for a drive. They live about an hour away and decided to take

their little convertible for a cruise in the warm sunshine.

We chatted outside and when we came in the house, my aunt said

"whats that?"

Surprise visit #2...

Just in front of the screen door to the porch sat an Elgaria caerulea...

that's a Northern alligator lizard to us common folk.

I'm not sure how it got in, maybe the cat or it could have crept in while one of the 

other doors was open, but needless to say we were all quite in awe of the little guy.

It was about 6 or 7" long and after about 20 minutes we caught it

in a kitchen sieve and then it was kind enough to allow us to take a few photos

before we returned it to it's preferred environment on the mossy rocks.

...here it is still in the sieve...

 ...and after we put it out on the rock...

 It was quite calm, even though when I tried to pick it up it kind of bit me, more of a pinch really.

I didn't want to grab it and have its tail fall off, which is a defence mechanism.

The tail will grow back but never as long and skinny and it takes a lot to do so.

It's tail is it's fat reserve so it's an important commodity 

and will only 'release' it under extreme circumstances to escape.

The northern alligator lizard is Vancouver Islands only true lizard and is not

to be confused with a newt. They come out to sun themselves on rocks

and so with all of this warm weather it must have been out and about enjoying the heat.

They're quite secretive and spend the winter hibernating in underground dens.

They can have from 2 - 6 babies which they carry inside them until giving birth a few months later.

So there you go...another gift from the outside, another little miracle on the earth.

2 visitors...1 lucky, 1 not so lucky

Yesterday morning I went out onto the deck and found a little brown bat who was dead.

My curiosity always gets the better of me in such manners

and so after making sure it was truly dead, I grabbed

a pair of good gloves and my camera (of course).

"The unexamined life is not worth living"
So says Socrates.
I couldn't agree more. To be able to have a close look at one of the
worlds most fascinating and stealth little creatures is a gift.
Look at it's little nose...almost looks like a dog nose...

We have them around here all summer but it's only for a fleeting moment that we see them

take off from their house and then in the twilight, they're gone.

See the tiny hook-like claw they have for climbing and crawling?

Like a little finger...

The German word for bat is 'fledermaus'...like flying mouse.

Something I never knew before is that they actually have another claw where a tail would be.

I imagine this is for hanging upside down purposes...

...look at those tiny wee feet!...

I gently spread her out on a blanket, knowing how powerful, yet delicate

their wings are...even in death, those little hooks clung to the blanket...

 how amazing is the fact that something so paper thin can fly for hours upon hours every night...

Don't forget that bats are one of the most valuable controllers

of mosquito's and eat something like 3,000 of them in a single night!

So as odd and as bad a reputation as they have remember

BATS ARE OUR FRIENDS!

So #1 unlucky visitor but then in the late afternoon, while I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready

I saw something scurry across the floor.

It was one of our native lizards.

We used to see them all the time around here but I hadn't seen one in a few years.

So I called Tom to come and catch it so I could take photos (of course!).

You have to be careful when trying to catch these guys because they

are extremely fast and in defence their tale will break off so

they can escape. The remaining broken off piece will continue to twitch,

distracting the predator

while the lizard escapes and eventually regrows a new piece of tail.

Isn't nature extraordinary?!

Tom was quick and gentle and we put him/her down on the ground

to let it go.

Technically they are called Northern Alligator Lizards and are found only in South Western B.C.

Harmless little things...

It took one last look before scurrying off.

#2 visitor...lucky.

Still unclear of how it happened to be in the house but lucky I found it before the cat did!