My Last Lizard

While talking on the phone to an internal customer last Tuesday, the boxed contents of my home methodically being loaded into a moving truck by 2 conscientious movers, I noticed this little whip tail lizard outside my kitchen window.  It was not even 4 inches long, tail included, a baby compared to the 6 and 8 inchers I watched the road runner stalk and catch along the wall earlier this year. 

I am going to miss my bevy of buff, butch, push-up-displaying, territorial, all female lizards (they reproduce asexually, according to what DDF has read) as the Southern California suburb where we live doesn't have this Sonoran desert species.  We do have snails (moisture in abundance!), ants, and hummingbirds.  And when I asked a neighbor what kind of 'critters' they have here, she told me "just bunnies" - as she's a master-gardener and the bunnies are her nemesis.  From rattle snakes, gila monsters, lizards and tarantula, to snails, bunnies, and Labrador retrievers.  Quite a change. 

At least we still have hummingbirds.   It made me kind of sad to see the Big old Anna's Hummingbird male come flit about where the nectar feeders USED TO be, in the back yard, last Tuesday, as if he was saying to himself "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!! They were here yesterday... ???"  But it warmed my heart to hear 3 different (and see 2 of them) males singing at the top of their tiny lungs on Wednesday morning here in California while waiting for the moving truck to arrive at 730am.  Soon, there'll be 5 or 6 nectar feeders in he back yard.  Enough for everyone.