Greetings everyone! I would like take this opportunity to officially welcome my brother Ron to the photography blogging world (cheers, hoorays, clowns.. wait scratch that last evil thought). If you would like to check out his new site, you can visit it by either using the Blog link area in the right navigation pane our simply go here http://rondoerflerphotography.net (link here). Of course, to rub in his superior cache of birds, he leads off with a bird I do not have (dammit!). If that wasn’t enough he includes photos of bird babies which … wait for it .. .wait for it … I do not have either. Now before you go feeling too bad for me — and you should be by now — this foray into the wildlife blogging arena comes at an expense. One trait of my middle brother is he is extremely competitive. My other brother and I have just learned to live with this unique trait Ron has from the rest of our family – we considered an intervention many years back, but decided it would become a contest on how long he could hold out and opted to not waste the time. It is because of this trait I had to break down and create an official set of birding rules for us. This official list can be found on a previous post (link here). Please take note of Rule 06: If you have a working blog you must feature the bird before counting. Guess what folks, Ron has a birding blog. As explicitly stated in our official birding rules, he now has to feature every bird on the blog before it can be officially counted. I kind of feel bad for him. Well, for a few minutes at least, but then I realized I was up on him like 160 to TWO (although, I am not competitive). Regardless, check out Ron’s site – he has that thing looking really sharp.
To be honest, this post is mainly to welcome Ron and picked a post topic that I didn’t need to spend a lot of time on.
That my friends is what I refer to as a Lizard. I can also tell you that my lovely wife always refers to them as snakes with legs. This specifically means she gets near hysterical when she sees one and has a tendency to rip my clothes to pieces trying to hide behind me (don’t believe me, ASK HER).
Unlike my wife, I hope you like looking at picture of Lizards I took out on our trip to Vegas.
Hit the jump to see a few more Lizard shots!
As mentioned in the header, I specifically chose a blog topic that wouldn’t require a lot of work. That was a coded sentence that translates into .. hope you like purdy pictures ’cause I know nuttin about Lizards hehehehe.
I did take a few minutes to try and identify a couple of them for you, but it turned out to be almost as difficult as trying to identify a juvenile Sparrow. Um, well it is brownish, it has a tail, it has four feet, kinda has a stripe or two … tell me what it is Google….
That either brought back a blurb on how they are basically snakes with feet – apparently Linda has been cataloged by Google or brought me back 6,343, 654 images. Guess what, I don’t care about Lizards enough to dig through that many images.
They are awfully cute though. The one above and below was pretty curious of the Beast and was busy checking himself out in the glass. I can point out that these were taken either at the Valley of Fire State Park or Red Rock Canyon in Nevada (both near the Vegas area).
Guessing the birding wasn’t going to well at those places because I took a ton of Lizard shots. Just putting up a sample here for you to enjoy. If I get short on blogging material I might put out part two of this series. Wait, I just finished processing the shots from out Texas trip – I have fodder until 2019!
Note, I did try to identify this dude since it had a distinct marking on its neck. Google two stripes neck Lizard Nevada.
Oh, there you go, that my friends is a …. LIZARD.
Oh well, I should probably close out this post before Linda sees me typing it up and goes into hysterics. Before I do that, though I will give you a shot of the real Lizard King…
….that’s right, I went, I saw and I tamed that wild huge ass Lizard and made it my bi…. oh crap, Linda just saw the Lizards on my computer screen .. gotta go.
Hey, thanks for the shout-out to my new birding blog!! I thought long and hard about starting one, but finally bit the bullet realizing that the birding “rules” are really more like “guidelines”. Right?? As it is, I’m still trying to find my voice on the blog, trying to develop a style. I’ve only posted twice, and I’m finding the words are not flowing like I thought, not at all. I need to find the right mix of content, and I definitely want to add more facts like you do here. I’m starting out simple, and no doubt will get better at this.
Oh, and I’m not competitive at all, I don’t know what you mean. Me? And I only selected my Virginia Rail pics for the first post because they are my best ones. And the same reason for my second post. I need to put up my best shots first, and gradually add in other species hoping that I get better pics by the time I get to them.
Don’t sit on the lizards! That last lizard, by the way, is a Collared Lizard, either an Eastern Collared Lizard or a Great Basin Collard Lizard, a female or maybe a juvenile. For the first, look at the lower pictures at http://www.birdandhike.com/Wildlife/Lizard/Crotap_col/_Cro_col.htm . Since this comment will be held for moderator approval with a second link, you can see the second type of lizard if you replace the two occurrences of “col” in the previous link with “bic”. In either case the lizard can run on its hind legs when it wants to chase something, so watch out!
Thanks again for referencing my brand new blog!
Ron
Sorry for the delay in responding – was trying to get out another post (which went out just a few minutes ago) and noticed your huge comment and wanted to give myself time to read it thoroughly. Unfortunately, the rules are pretty much cast in stone – check that, they are right now being printed out in my 3D printer in order to stand the test of time and be free of any digital failure concerns. As I mentioned on your site, this little ramp on the information highway is nine years old – my early years were rough until I got comfortable with how I wanted to voice myself – especially when OTHER people were going to be reading it – eventually I just decided it was my hobby and not to worry about it to a point it became actual work.
Hmmmm – well as evidence “A” your Scissor-Tail Flycatcher shots are pretty damn awesome and you didn’t lead with those … which I have hehehehe. Clearly these early topics are meant to punish me for making you go back to zero on the count.
Thanks for the ID assist! The second to last picture is a dead on match so I definitely agree. Holy shit, I just realized the dude referred to them as “Velociraptors of the desert” Next time I’m going to shoot them from behind Linda! (shhhhh don’t tell her)