This fellow is on the sunshade on one of my dog pens.

If you want to attract wildlife to your yard, give it plenty of places to live. You can't do much better than to have lots of flowers in pots and small areas of garden. My yard is now populated by dozens of toads, lizards, five lined skinks, etc.

I also have had two birds raise thier babies in containers on the back of the house. Another one has just taken up residence in a hanging basket on my front porch.

When I moved to my house seven years ago there were almost no birds - now their voices and activites provide a delightful background to my outdoor work all day long.

As Canon says in their public service announcement on Nature: "Capture it in the wild (with photographs), and leave it as you found it."

By the way, there are many beautiful pictures of anoles out there. Check google images - which also links to more information.

Carolina Anoles (Anolis carolinensis)
New with this update Questions from Visitors (and answers)

10/12/2003: It has been quite a while since I updated this page.

This has been a rather bad year for the anoles here in the Carolinas, way too much rain, and the temperature this summer was unusually cold - we only had a couple of days that got up to 90 F. So very few lizards made an appearance although I recently saw a few small babies and one or two adults. Yesterday I saw this one.

Do you see her?

This bit of garden is right in front of my house. I had bent down to pull off the dead leave and almost touched her. I quickly went inside to get the camera in the hopes that she would still be there when I got back. I took some more pictures (wish the tripod had been handy), but this one was the best. Later I saw another baby.

There she is, on the dead leaf.

• I also saw very few skinks this summer. None on the porch - I did see a beautiful baby (brilliant blue tail) running up the roof. There were few toads, and not too many birds. The Carolina Wrens however, had a grand year. I am sure that they raised seven or eight batches of babies in flower pots which I keep on the shelf on the back of the house.

Last year's (2002) entries.

•Recently I had some blankets I had drying out on the fence. I checked them very carefully to remove all of the lizards before bringing them in - six lizards on one blanket. Even so, I still had to retrieve a couple out of the laundry pile in the basement.

• I now have a couple (more than a couple) of toads living in a flower pot beside the house, and the five lined skinks are pretty much all over the place (shy though, I don't see them often). I'm building a new flower bed, so soon there will be more good places for them to hang out.

• My main involvement with these little fellows is in saving their lives. They seem to enjoy coming in the house with the clothes I dry outside. This past fall a large family (five or six at least) took up residence in one of my bird feeders. Their usual home is trees and bushes. They also like to hang out on the gardenia bush I keep on the porch, so I have had lots of opportunity for observation. One morning I had the priviledge to watch a pair of them courting and mating (a good excuse to be late to work, this process goes on for quite a long time.) Recently I captured one in my basement and returned him outside. A few days later, I raked up another with some leaves by accident. I placed him over the fence and waited to see if he was undamaged. A good excuse not to finish the raking - don't disturb the lizards.

• The bright green color changes to brown depending on the surface they are on [this may not be correct - some sources say it depends more on temperature, and breeding status]. In warm weather anoles spend time hanging out on the fence near the bird feeders. I have seen a battle between two males - not very violent - a butterfly consumed, and lots of display with a wonderful show of a red throat pouch. This is mainly to advertise territorial claims and to attract females.

•Last Fall:
Meanwhile, yesterday was a good day for one lizard at my house.

He came in with the laundry earlier in the week and disappeared. While racing around getting ready for work, I found him on the floor near the dog crates in the basement. He appeared to be dead, but I thought at least I would take him outside. I got a soft brush and touched him. He was still alive. Hoping he would stay put, I went for a container to brush him into. He was pretty cold on the cement floor, so he was easy to get into the plastic bowl. Out he went to sit in the sun on the "lizard: carpet on the fence. I was late for work, but it was grand to think that I had saved one more tiny scrap of life.

Last spring (2002):
I saw the first anole of the season a couple of days ago. It was a bright moment on a sad day. Later that evening I saw one floating in a bucket of rainwater. I thought he was dead, but I fished him out and saw that he was still alive, just very cold. I put him on a bush in a safe place. After he got warm he went about his business.

Last weekend:
June 2002: I am trying very hard to make my animal web pages educational. So here is a little email exchange which may or may not help another anole.

This is an email enquiry and my answers which I have excerpted below.

Email from visitor to my website:".... my god mother just brought my little boy who is 7 a green anole back from Alabama and we live in [a state adjacent to North Carolina]. This is his first time having a lizard but he loves animals so I'm trying to learn more about the lizards. Well we have only had the anole for 5 days now and guess what she laid an egg. So i really am trying to figure out what to do about this. I'm not for sure if the egg is fertile or if that happens after the egg is laid. Good luck huh. lol. I'm really trying to find a male to go with her now and my family and I are fixing to go on a camping trip to North Carolina..... But if you have any information about being able to purchase one somewhere there in that area I would really appreciate it. I'm hoping to look around and maybe capture another one and hopefully a male this time. I love to watch this one change from green to brown. They are really a cute animal. Well thank you for your time."

My reply: The very most wonderful thing you could do is let the little girl lizard go back free into where she came from. You can very often observe these lizards in your yard. I am sorry to say she will probably die in captivity, as it will be hard for you to provide her with the insect diet she needs. I hope you will consider letting her go, and then teach your son to look for her, and her potential offspring in the wild. They are really easy to spot on fences, tree limbs, etc. These lizards are not meant to be kept as pets. If your son is intersted in keeping a lizard as a pet, you might want to visit a pet store which sells them.

You can also get books from your local library which would help with how to care for them, and of course this type of information is available on the web.

Good luck. I will pray that you consider letting this little girl go back to her natural home.

Next email from the visitor: "Hi and thanks for the information we are going to have to visit the pet store now, because you will never believe what happened. while I was typing to you i went back out on the front porch where i was letting her get some of the suns rays like I had read about and she was dead i don't have a clue what happened if she choked on the lighting bug my son but in there or if she had tried to jump out again and hit her head the wrong way or what but he was sick over it. He really liked watching and caring for it. I really hated it. and we checked the egg and i noticed it last night that half of it was caved in. So it wasn't a fertile egg. But I told him that when we go to North Carolina that we would check the pet stores there for hand raised ones. Thanks so much for e-mailing me back. See where I live here in [state name omitted] there is none of the anoles and I have read that if you are looking for a pet lizard they are the best to start out with. So we can maybe check there when we visit. Take care and thanks again so much."

My reply: Thank you for your reply. It is never a good thing to take a wild animal from its environment, even a small one. But a pet raised [purposely] to be a pet can adapt. I hope you will go to your local library to get some books on how to care for your new pet. And teach your son to observe wild things in the wild - it can be really interesting and fun.

I took some pictures of an anole in my front yard today [the one on this page].

Best wishes.

This little garden, all in containers - is home to many lizards and toads.