Saturday, April 07, 2007

Happy Easter.

So I think my hair is probably going to turn purple sometime next week...

I had a really lovely day yesterday, unexpectedly. I woke up early enough to watch the sunrise, which it was very pleasant, but condemned the day as far as I was concerned. But then I fell back to sleep and was woken up several hours later by the phone ringing and my folks inviting us out. We went for a walk in the forest, and it was completely gorgeous. We saw a lizard. It was a Common Lizard. There are 4796 species of lizard in the world, apparently, and the one we saw was the common one. Great. We didn't take our camera though; I'm sure you would have mesmerised by the sight of this thing, which was not only greenish-brown but also somewhat speckly. It would have taken your breath away.

Then we came home and had a picnic at our newly acquired picnic table in the back garden. All of which was very nice indeed.

Tomorrow I am going to visit my grandmothers. It is rather strange to me to be actually doing stuff on the Easter weekend; it usually passes utterly without event. This year, it wasn't until Thursday that I even reaslied Easter was upon us. Anyway, some serious resting up required today.

Hope you all have a great Easter weekend, whatever you are up to.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Common Lizard (Lacerta vivipara Linn.)is actually a very interesting little creature.

Most lizards lay their eggs in an appropriate spot and then clear off. Some species hang around to check for a while but that's it.

L Vivipara carries her eggs in her body until they are almost ready to hatch; only then does she lay them, and within hours or minutes you can see the little tooth pierce the soft shell and the head emerge, if you are very lucky. I have only seen it in captivity.

The really amazing thing about that was, that the baby lizard, still in its egg, about 1cm long or less, spotted me and made eye contact - I am not making this up - and then refused to come out any further until I went away out of sight.

Smiffy said...

The Photographic Rule of Interesting Fauna is that you, the Interesting Fauna and a camera will never be in the same place. Even since I have had a mobile phone with a camera in it, for some strange reason I never have the phone on me when I spot something really interesting.

Luckily, since moving to Australia, there is never any shortage of lizards of various species. Unfortunately, the same applies to some very venomous snakes.

Another amazing lizard fact is that there is a species of South American whip-tail lizard which has absolutely no males. Haven't told my wife about this in case she gets ideas.

Mary said...

Yay for lovely days!

Sally said...

I love to picture Goldfish picnic-ing and in her very own garden whenever she wants. Smashing.
Happy Easter/Spring Springing.

Timbo said...

And a very happy Easter to you too. x

BloggingMone said...

Happy Easter, Goldfish! Good you enjoyed the lizard and the picnic. We have been out for a walk around a lake nearby, but today it is much to rainy and cold to even think of a picnic!