Since I started taking pictures of the lizards, I have found the females to be harder to get close to. They are generally more skittish, and don’t do as much for territorial display as some of the more colorful males.
But they do display, and they do bicker over territory. And, with some patience in the afternoon, I can occasionally get close enough for a decent shot by waiting quietly at a favored location, and sometimes I can get a display when another lizard appears behind me.
Actually, that’s true of the males, too. They display most when another lizard is around. If I see pushups and posturing I can often turn around and find an interloper doing the same.
One favored spot is on the furniture dolly, which sits on the western side of the driveway across from the center of the planter. This dragon has been trying to claim it ever since the Central dragon moved north, where he now tries to defend the territory along the driveway from north of this wooden dolly to the end of the motorcycle garage. You can see her here posturing. Head erect, tail in the air, and deeply tanned — they tend to be lighter in color when cold and darken up considerably when they’ve been warming in the sun for an hour.
One reason for the posturing is that this fat bruiser of a female, who lives in the middle of the planter, will often posture from the wall or even run and chase others away from the favored wooden perch. Here she is hanging out on the wooden perch.
I didn’t get many pictures here because she became agitated and started running around. Alas, her posturing was beneath the wooden perch and I was unable to get any usable images before she ran to the wall of the planter. These little bastards are fast, twitchy, and quite hard to capture when they’re agitated.
The reason was an interloper, who was so brave she came to within two feet of me. I actually had to back up to be able to get me lens to focus on her. There’s a reason she doesn’t have a tail, and it’s not just because she used to live in the back yard where the neighborhood cats hang out.
Her appearance on the wall, a good 10 feet north of where she is usually allowed by the Planter dragon, caused the Planter dragon to move to the wall and adopt threatening postures.
Even when there are not nefarious interlopers to do pushups at, the Planter dragon will generally hang out right at the step in the middle of the planter. It is where I most commonly find her, and likely a good place as Bootsy takes Doug for a walk a few times a day and being as he is a dog of diminutive stature the elevation makes it a lot easier to avoid his notice and escape. Bootsy likes to try and eat anything that moves, and more than one lizard has ended up in his mouth — though, strangely, he’s too stupid to know what to do with them once he catches them.
I hate that fucking dog.
Here’s the Planter dragon on her perch and playing gargoyle from a different day. Seems to be a great place to take in the sunset on a bright afternoon. On this day I got a little too close after the first photograph and had to sit in the driveway for twenty minutes before she returned for the second. The gargoyle shots were from later that evening as she was peeking out to see if it was safe again after Doug and Bootsy passed by on their walk.
It has actually become a little easier to take pictures of some females since we mowed the front yard. The stump in the middle of the yard has a couple who peer out of the crack, cautiously, while the belligerent male sits on the top of the stump, showing off his blue to everyone in the vicinity. He and his two girlfriends live in a split in the middle of the stump and you can sometimes see all three lounging in the sun.
Mostly, I have been taking video of the goings on. Several other lizards like to try and sun themselves on the stump or assert their dominance and the resident male is often forced to chase them away, so there’s plenty of interesting interaction to try and capture.
I have gotten one or two good stills while I was at it, and may try some more if I’m bored on a sunny evening. The first pic is the larger female that lives in the main split. The others are of the dominant male, patrolling to assure the Trash dragon and the Cactus dragon don’t get any ideas that they can invade his territory. They’re here just to whet your appetite, but I’ll leave the colorful poses and territorial displays for another post.
As a side note, I’ve broken out the D7100 so I can set up two cameras. I have been videoing from two different angles at the same time, to try and better capture some of the more interesting interaction. I notice I haven’t updated the EXIF data so my copyright notice is two years out of date. Rest assured, these were taken in 2020.
