Nature in my condo
Went down today with my sis, first with Dofu, but she was a nuisance after a while (I was trying to take macro shots of the butterflies), we returned her home.It was a lovely little trip. Around the swimming pool to the 'wilder' areas... to my sister's 'secret place', trying to look for insects, butterflies, praying mantids and lizards.
There was a changeable lizard which bolted from the tennis courts to a little wall... it couldn't climb up, so we had it cornered. It was a small female, not fully-grown, but no longer young enough to be considered a juvenile. I squatted down and caught it the way I've learnt to hold agamids - its neck would go between my pointer and third finger which are bent in a loose hook, and the rest of the fingers would support the weight of its body. I'd hold it straight and firm, but not tight, so that it would feel safe and not twist and hurt itself.
It has been more than two years since I've held a changeable lizard, and I miss the feeling of looking at one at close quarters. It's such a beautiful creature... bright round black pupils, delicately-patterned scales of all sorts of shapes, and its colours are amazing. When we first saw it and when it was in my hand, it was a cool golden-yellowish brown. Then after I released it, and it was almong the leaf litter, it turned darker... and even darker still when it climbed up the trunk of a tree, till it was a greenish-brown. Although I love the green-cresteds, my favourite is still the changeable lizard.
I'd say it was a tame one, since it let me pick it up without so much of a struggle, but after a while when I loosened my hold it turned around and bit my fingers a few times - though it wasn't hard, my natural reflex was to let it go, and it sprang off and ran a little ways further from my foot. I took a few more pictures of it, and afterwards we let it be.
Here's a shot of it in my hand:
Notice the change in its colours in each successive photograph (click for a bigger image):
Besides the lizard, I also took photos of a copulating pair of handmaiden day-flying moths and a handmaiden day-flying moth caterpillar. The small lesser-blue butterflies have not been cooperative in the least, so I did not manage to take any good shots of them.
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