Fence lizards always make me smile.

I'm just happy to have them living around here.

Photo taken with Nikon P900.

Nice! I see plenty of anoles of course, but it's the fence lizards and 5-lined skinks I can never see enough of. They all do love sunning on the brick ledge around my house and brick windowsills.

Ya those guys are really cool, there one of the species that got me into reptiles. The ones we have here have realy cool patterns, iv caught a couple that are black on top but have a silver belly with the two blue lines down the sides.

Years ago, Connie planted a flower at the base of a large pine tree in front of the house, and since it was new, and it had been dry for a while, she took a cup of water out to water that plant. She told me that while she was pouring water on the plant, a fence lizard ran down the tree, and stuck his head into it to get a drink of water. She was flabbergasted! She ran to get me to tell me about it, and when she repeated the watering, darn if the lizard didn't do it again.

Than back when I was breeding gray banded kings, I had some stubborn babies that just wouldn't take pinky mice, so I knew I needed a lizard to scent them with. Anoles just wouldn't work for me, and I knew I had a big fence lizard out back of the house. Yeah, I know.... Anyway, I walked back there, and there he was on the corner. I approached him reluctantly and kept telling him he REALLY needed to run. But I kept on getting closer and closer, and he was just looking at me like he was thinking "I've seen you around before, and you've never hurt me, so I'm comfortable right now, please and thank you." I was able to actually reach down and rub him on his chin and he NEVER moved. I just couldn't do it. So I left, jumped in the Bronco I had at the time, and went out to find a fence lizard that wasn't OUR fence lizard. I'll be honest, the lizard thing was the main reason I finally decided to get out of breeding gray banded kings. I really like fence lizards. And push come to shove, I liked them better than the gray bands. And I TRULY regret the number of them I had to kill for a few years to get those baby gray bands to eat for me.

When I lived in Jacksonville my mom would sit on back porch and talk to them. They would come in real close and cock their heads while she talked.

They are pretty personable. I'm half way tempted to buy a couple containers of waxworms to feed them. We have spotted 4 of them at one time around the buildings, but lately only seen this one. I have to keep my eye out for black racers, as I catch and bag them when I find them, and run them out to the national forest to release them away from "our" lizards.

It was only about 52 degrees out today, and that girl in the photo was still out sunning herself. I've had that pallet out by the garage for several months now and been meaning to move it, but not sure I can now that the fence lizard seems to have taken residence there. Maybe in the Spring she will move off to another area and I can get rid of it them.

We had many on the land we used to have in TN and they were a delight to observe. None on this FL property where my home is or the other one. Tons of anoles and a good population of skinks (each male seems to "own" a tree). We do have a few black racers here and I have watched them scale some of the smaller oaks and palms, so maybe that is why. If I can find any fence lizards in the immediate area around my property, I might try moving them here. Or leave them alone. Or split the difference and move only babies over. I have yet to decide.

Nice little neighbors to have around.

Took a couple pictures of ones i saw today.

Very nice pictures!


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