One day, during my recent trip to Florida, I decided to take my camera and my journal to the pool and relax for the afternoon. I had spent a long morning collecting photos of birds at one of the local wetlands and now I was going to work on sorting the good photos from the not-so-good ones. This is always a fun activity, but it is amazing how long it can take. My plan was to work a little, swim in the pool for a while, and then resume my work of scrutinizing my pictures.
When I first arrived there was little to distract me from my work. My wife and I were the only people at the pool and once I put up the umbrella and stretched my legs out I was able to immerse myself in my work. There were a few birds singing in the palm trees nearby, the sun and the breeze were warm, and it was just nice to be outside in the quiet of nature.
That’s when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head to see what it was, but there was nothing there. Hmm. That was strange. Well, there was a nice breeze blowing so maybe it was just a leaf or something. I went back to my little project and it wasn’t long before I saw another movement. I looked, but once again there was nothing to see. This was getting stranger.
So I decided to look under the table I was sitting at and that’s when I saw a little lizard sitting on the bricks and looking up at me. I wiggled my toes and the lizard zipped off to the next table. While I was watching that particular lizard I caught sight of another, and then another. Just how many lizards were at the pool anyway?
Well, I can’t tell you for sure because there were so many that it was impossible to keep track of all of them. What I can tell you is that they were very interesting to watch as they patrolled the patio in search of insects. I managed to see one of the lizards grab a fly that landed on the leg of one of the pool chairs, but the presence of so many hungry lizards surely kept the number of flies down.
There seemed to be several different kinds of lizards at the pool that day, but I didn’t have any idea what to call any of them. I took a few photos and then looked them up on the Internet and discovered that most of them were northern curly-tailed lizards (Leiocephalus carinatus). These are non-native lizards that were introduced to Florida in the 1940s in an attempt to control certain insects and today they are found anywhere there is a patio, a sidewalk, or a garden.
I was able to get several photos of these lizards, but the one I chose to share with you today is the most interesting, because it shows you just how many lizards were around the pool that day. Each patio table had four chairs and an umbrella. The umbrellas went down through the tables and were anchored to a large metal base. It turns out that each of these umbrella bases had a hole for adding sand so the base could be made heavier.
Well, all of the umbrella bases that I saw had a northern curly-tailed lizard poking its head out of the hole. At one point I got up to get a soda from the soda machine in the clubhouse and I counted seven lizards in seven umbrella bases. Here in our area we might see chipmunks poking their heads out of little round holes in the ground, but in Florida it was lizards poking their heads out of the little round holes in umbrella stands. I am glad that I got to see such interesting creatures behaving in such funny ways.
Bill Danielson has worked as a naturalist for 16 years. In that time, he has been a national park ranger, a wildlife biologist and a field researcher. He currently works as a high school chemistry and biology teacher. His Speaking of Nature column runs weekly in The Recorder, except for the first Monday of each month, which is when his Kids and Critters column for young readers appears. To contact Bill, or to learn more about his writing, visit www.speakingofnature.com.