Ojai Naturalist

During a very long hot spell in February of 2016 that had the lizards out of their usual winter torpor, I came out of the house to rejoin my wife and backpacking friend Harvey at the table in our north yard.  As I approached the table Harvey pointed out two western fence lizards that he presumed to be mating. Many years back, while on a backpacking trip together in Los Padres National Forest, I had made note of two alligator lizards we came across who were mating. The male grabs the female behind the head to keep her from getting away while mating.  I looked over to the Bluebellies, the common name for western fence lizards in these parts, and saw that it was actually two males and they were fighting each other!  Male western fence lizards maintain territories and will defend them vigorously.  The males will send signals from a distance that consist of doing push-ups with their body puffed up and showing their gular sack under their throat from a high spot in their territory.  These displays do a couple of things, first they advertise to males to stay away and they also show them to any females who might be around and willing to mate.  If there is to be a dispute between two males, they will start approaching each other sideways, standing as tall as they can, puffing out their bodies and gular sacks while curving their tails up and over their backs, if they still have a tail.  Of note here is that western fence lizards can release their tails in order to get away from predators. When the tail is released it is regrown with cartilage rather than bone, as the original was.  Because of that, the tail never fully regrows to its former size.

Lizards can also lose their tails in their fights with each other.  As a matter of fact, I have seen dislocated shoulders and missing digits from their feet because of the battles they have.  As they approach each other sideways, they will switch which side is facing their opponent so their heads face in opposite directions.  Sometimes these encounters last only a minute or less as one of the  combatants will sense that it is not big enough or bad enough to win and will run away. Other times it turns to hand to hand fighting.  Usually these last just a few minutes with the smaller,weaker one running away.  This particular encounter was going to prove to be epic!

 

I had wanted to wash my car, but the two males were fighting around where the hose was laying, so I decided to give them a little time to work things out.  I didn’t want to roll the hose over them washing the car.  Well, the fight went on for about fifteen minutes and I really needed to wash my car so I went over to them in order to break up the fight. We had been feeding these lizards by hand for a long time and they were quite comfortable around us (one of the benefits of feeding by hand).  My approach to the lizards did nothing to quell their battle.

With the lizards at my feet, I reached down and picked up Stumpy.  To my amazement he was very warm in my hand.  Reptiles are of course cold blooded and I had never handled a warm reptile.  I was somewhat worried that they would succumb to heat exhaustion.  I returned Stumpy to the ground, and they resumed their contest.  At this point I realized that I should be getting photos of the action, so I went in and grabbed the camera. Sometimes the lizards will bite on the sides of each other and sometimes they try and grab a leg.  When they have a good hold on their opponent they will often roll and flip much like an alligator does with its’ prey.

I ended up taking 61 photos of the lizards battling it out.  This process took about another fifteen minutes and that, added to the original fifteen minutes, had them fighting for a full half hour!  I have witnessed many, many Bluebelly fights and never has one gone on longer than a few minutes at best.  This encounter was incredible and truly epic! What was most incredible though was holding a warm reptile!  I doubt that I will ever experience that again, but hey… who knows?

Yours in Nature,

Backwoods Bruce

 

In a previous essay, “Predators and Prey,” I mentioned some of the mammal predators that we have and in this post I will focus on snakes, specifically gopher snakes.  There are no vegetarian snakes, all are predators.  And just like the other predators they focus on the ground squirrels.  While the smaller gopher snakes will eat reptiles ( see “Fattening Lizards for the Snakes”) and mice the larger ones want larger prey.

We all know that snakes can swallow prey much larger than its head.  Mostly because of its stretchy skin and dislocating jaw.  However, I find it pretty amazing just how far that can take them.  In the photo on the left my wife is gazing at a good sized gopher snake, close to four feet probably, with a baby ground squirrel in it.  We had a preponderance of baby ground squirrels the spring of 2013.  They were jumping all around their burrows when they first started to emerge and that lump in the middle of the snake is the perfect size to be one of them.

Most animals have a certain size limit they will achieve based on their species.  Snakes however can continue to grow their entire lives.  This is the saga of the largest gopher snake that I have had the good fortune to see.

I came upon this snake when I returned from errands one day in spring of 2009.  It was out in my driveway headed for my neighbor’s driveway.  My neighbors were out at the time and I did not want the snake to be run over so I moved it to the east side of my north yard along the fence and sat down at my table there.

I fully expected the snake to head off into the east pasture, especially because of my handling it when it was moved. Instead it came right down the fence line, inside the fence line!  Even my walking around him for photos did not deter it. He seemed extremely determined in his quest and I thoroughly enjoyed watching him come through the yard, not to mention all the great photos that I was getting.

The snake was extremely focused in its endeavors and moved along to the edge of the patio.  As the snake came through it was moving its head back and forth and flicking out its tongue checking out the scents with its Jacobson’s organ.

The photo below shows him stretched out.  I used this photo to get an accurate estimate of its length.  It was surely tracking something. Right after this photo he makes a bee line for an area where we had some things stored outside.  The bicycle tire gives good scale for the size of this snake.

After the snake went into the junk pile,  I went into the house happy with my photos.  About twenty minutes later I came out to check on things.  I went out without my camera as the junk pile was not good photographic material and I already had lots of great photos. As I went to check on the pile I noticed a motion down to my right. It was a baby bush cottontail rabbit squirming around in the clutter.  The snake had been following the trail of the baby rabbit!  Instinctively I picked up the rabbit since it was so small and helpless.  It immediately started squealing for its life!  I let it go outside of the yard.  There was no sign of the snake so I went back in. After about another twenty minutes I went back out to check, again without my camera. Low and behold there is the snake all coiled up right where the baby rabbit had been! And I, without my camera!  Oh well, I had a good story.  However, it does not end there. Five years later, in 2014, I believe that he was here again.  I have really nothing to go on but for his size, which is enormous!

One day last November, 2015, there was a turkey vulture sitting on a small electrical pole eyeing the field below.  It had been flying around very low, searching.  Turkey vultures are one of the few birds with a sense of smell and locate what they eat with it.  Condors, which cannot smell, will look for turkey vultures circling around food.

It had been flying around here for a couple of days.  It eventually dropped down into the field southeast of me.  After a bit I saw it dragging something so I went in to get my spotting scope which is just inside the door ready to go.  It was obviously pulling on something very large!  The scope showed it to be a snake, a very large gopher snake!

It is surely big enough to be the one that I had seen before.  In the photo to the right the head of the snake is closer to us on the right. Turkey vultures are very large birds which again shows how big that snake was.  I have no idea how that snake died, except that it probably was not a predator because they would have eaten it, not the vulture.

I would expect that the snake had a long and happy life, given its size and the area it lived.  All things in our natural world have an expiration date, including the planet.  That is surely a big part of our desire to explore space.  Of course that’s if we don’t destroy our planet first!

Yours in Nature,

Bacwoods Bruce

In a previous post, “Fattening Lizards for the Snakes,” I talked about a few of the reptiles that we have including the western fence lizard, southern alligator lizard, gopher snake and common king snake.   I have also had the good fortune to have a couple of first sightings of reptiles here in my little paradise.  One day, while I was raking up oak leaves at the edge of the driveway, what looked to be the lost tail of a lizard wiggling about on the ground (some can shed them to get away from predators) turned out to be something else!  I had thought that I had caught a lizard with the rake and its tail was squirming around.  One problem though, what would be the broken end kept moving around trying to get under something!  Further inspection showed that it was a baby California legless lizard!

 

Adult legless lizards are between 4 1/2 to 6 1/2 inches.  The first I ever saw was here when we first moved in and it was a full blown adult about as fat as my pinkie.  I have seen one other at this location and it was between the previous two in size, and it was dead. They slither around in soft sand and leaf litter in moister areas around us.

 

 

 

The other first sighting was of a western whiptail juvenile.  I was very aware of the California whiptail and when I first saw this lizard I think I may have written him off as a western skink juvenile, due to the blue tail.  I was editing and cataloging some reptile photos one day when I came across this photo below.

Whoa, that is just way too many stripes down its back for a skink I thought.  So to my reference manuals I go.

See the difference?  And it is surely not a California whiptail.  Bingo, new reptile, western whiptail!  I don’t recall ever noticing this lizard before anywhere else.

One species that I have seen very little of before and have had sightings of here of is the brightly colored ringneck snake.

Ringneck snakes forage in the leaf litter and under logs for salamanders and other small reptiles and large insects.  They are not often seen.  They grow to 10 to 30 inches, although the few that I have seen have been less than two feet long, as is this one.

My favorite lizard by far is the California whiptail, for a few reasons.  First, they are very active and easy to observe.  They are also very bold and aggressive.  And last, they move with a gait that is very different from the other lizards, it is kind of slinky.  It also is one of our largest lizards.

Given their boldness they are easily trained to take meal worms from my hand.  Although all the lizards learn very quickly to do so, the whiptails seem to come over and beg for food.

Last summer we had a whiptail coming around a lot to feed which I named Slinker, for the way the whiptails walk.  Slinker was down at my feet where I was sitting, ” Birding Table-North Yard” where I always sit, begging for more food.  I had the thought that Slinker might be aggressive enough to jump for his meal!  Holding a meal worm up so he had to leap to get it, he did!

 

 

Once we all got our timing down Slinker became extremely adept at snatching the meal worm from our hands.  It became a great game for us, well me anyway, and he got some great food so I’m sure he was happy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After feeding him for several weeks he was gone.  I do see California whiptails from time to time so I will be sure to try this again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A southern alligator lizard I named Big Red once ran about 15 feet over to me for a worm and western fence lizards will also often run up to you for one, however, Slinker has really amazed me!  I had the odd thought that I could change Slinker’s name to “Leo the Leaping Lizard” and take him on tour but he wouldn’t sign a contract.  Can you believe that!  After all those meal worms, he has to be kidding,right?

Yours in Nature,

Backwoods Bruce