Backyard Raptor

Green Anole

I was sitting on my backyard deck yesterday when I noticed a young Green Anole about four inches long crawling slowly along the cross bars of my tomato stakes. "Hello lizard", I said. He stopped at the sound of my voice and rolled one eye in my direction. "You're safe here", I told him. At that both eyes rolled in what seemed all directions checking for a lie in what I had just told him. In a moment he seemed confident I had told him the truth. It was still and quite on this morning and the Anole's eyes moved only at the sound of my voice or when my Brittany Spaniel danced across the deck chasing her own phantom sounds and smells. The lizard sat on its perch and I on mine enjoying the cloud free, September dawn. Suddenly the little lizard's tail raised skyward and began to roll out, back and forth, like a fly fisherman false casting in pursuit of a rising trout. It was a graceful but impending motion and after no more than three or four cast of its tail the Anole, eyes focused intently forward, pounced a full body length on what next appeared to be a lady bug now bulging from the tiny lizard's extended mouth. The instant I saw the bug I knew where I had seen that same attack pattern before....Jurassic Park and its ominous raptors. Perhaps those story tellers were familiar with this antic and had incorporated it in their script. Perhaps all lizards do this, but it was a first for me and a joy to behold. I thanked the little Anole for showing off in front of me.