This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘National Kids and Pets Day.’ See more responses here. I mentioned to Terri that I might have a hard time with this one, not having kids or pets, and she suggested I could use the ‘pet’ geckos around here.
So here’s a gold dust day gecko playing hide and seek with me from a bird of paradise flower.
Also posted in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ See more responses here.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Emerging.’ See more responses here. I’ve posted photos of this scene before, but I thought a couple more fit the bill for this week’s theme.
This brightly-colored gold dust day gecko lived in a Pepsi machine for a while and regularly emerged from the interior via the coin return slot. Then it would hang out on the edge for while, checking out the scene, before returning to the cool, dark interior.
Also posted in response to Becky’s April Squares challenge theme of ‘Bright.’ See more responses here.
I was sorting through some photos the other day when I came across this one and realized I hadn’t posted it before. If it looks somewhat familiar, it’s because this is the image my gravatar comes from. I chose it because, if I were a gecko, I’m pretty sure that’s the expression I’d have most of the time.
Mourning geckos are nocturnal, but this one was caught going up a corrugated panel in daylight. The bumpy texture of the panel is a bit like the gecko itself.
Posted in response to Becky’s January Squares challenge theme of ‘Up.’ See more responses here.
I was sitting on the couch when a large, dark shape appeared on the window screen. The bottom photo shows this first view I had of what was clearly a black witch moth. I took my camera outside and shot a few more photos.
Sometimes these moths can look very battered indeed, but this one looked in good shape, if a little faded. It remained in this spot for several hours until an ambitious gecko saw it as a potential banquet. When the gecko got too close, the moth took off.
I’ve seen a gecko go after one of these moths before (here), but I’ve yet to see one succeed in its quest.
On Saturday, I was finalizing my post for Sunday when I had a copy editor drop in. This baby gecko checked out my typing and seemed satisfied. Then it padded up the screen to the top, perched there for a while, before disappearing down the back.
I usually use my laptop while sitting next to a window in the living room. It’s a long-standing tradition in this house for baby geckos to peer over the edge of the trim above this window, before leaping down onto my head, legs, or computer. This is a drop of five or six feet, which is 60 to 70 times the length of these little geckos. That would be like me throwing myself off a 400-foot-high cliff. The only difference is that I wouldn’t be getting up and going anywhere after that.
These two may both be gold dust day geckos, but the large gecko on the outside of the window was definitely thinking unkind thoughts about the youngster inside. It kept striking at it, and banging its head against the glass. Truth is, it’s a gecko eat gecko world and the adult was trying to make a meal of the little one.
I don’t know whether the youngster learned anything from this experience. They always look baffled by everything going on. Still, plenty of them are obviously surviving the challenges. It doesn’t look like we’ll be running out of geckos any time soon.
Posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Kind.’ See more responses here.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Inside.’ See more responses here.
I have a ladder I keep in a shed. Lately, I’ve had to access the attic on a regular basis (rat problems!) and have to bring the ladder inside to do so. I’ve learned from experience that, while in the shed, the ladder is home to a variety of creatures, mostly geckos. So before I bring it in the house I do my best to shake out the residents. Almost always, one or two will leap to safety. However, sometimes it’s not until I have the ladder in the house and set up that the more tenacious geckos make a break for it.
I’ve had a spate of this happening, which has resulted in a boost in the numbers of nocturnal house geckos inside. This, in turn, has resulted in territorial clashes between the geckos.
What does this have to do with jars of pasta? Well, at one end of this shelf is a cupboard which is home to one of the resident geckos. The other end of the shelf falls into the realm of a house gecko that lives in a closet in the next room. Into this setup, up above the jars, stumbled one of the new geckos. When it got too close to one end, the cupboard gecko chased it away. It ran to the other end where the closet gecko chased it back. Back and forth it went with the other geckos closing in with each pass. Soon the three of them were very close together.
At this point, the new gecko scurried down the wall in amongst the jars. This left the two resident geckos facing off in close proximity. Cupboard gecko charge the other one, but ran right past while closet gecko just looked bemused. Problem was, now they were both separated from their respective territories by the other gecko. A series of feints and scampers ensued before they regained their own homes.
In the meantime, the new gecko kept a low profile down amongst the pasta jars. That’s when I took this photo, as it was tentatively checking to see if the coast was clear.
