Saturday, May 9, 2009

Snakes and lizards in Kaibab

I had the opportunity to visit Kaibab National Forest for 2 days. Short-horned lizards were active and somewhat easy to find while hiking. There were tiny ones:

Small ones:

Medium sized:

Medium skinny:

And larger, handsome ones:



There were common tree lizards:
While photographing this common tree lizard, I accidentally chased it into another tree lizard's territory and they got into a fight right in front of me.
In a different area there were striped plateau lizards:
This was a pretty big one:
There were sage lizards:
There was spectacular terrain and scenery. A whiptail was seen, but it dashed into the briars before a good photo could be taken.
Kaibab is known habitat for the rarely seen Arizona mountain king snake, so that was the goal.
But no mountain kings were found on this trip, even with considerable effort. This wandering garter snake was found. It had just eaten what looked like a large short-horned lizard.
This is the garter, exactly as it was found:
When I moved the garter to the grass for a different shot, it did the usual defecating/musking.