kevin_standlee | Lounging Lizard

I set my alarm even earlier than usual so we could see the lunar eclipse. Lisa was up before me at 4 AM and we took our deck chairs out to the lot to the west of us to admire the view. It was fortunately not too cold this morning. We would have taken a picture, but by the time we thought about it, it was too late to go get the camera and tripod, as the first sliver of un-eclipsed moon had revealed itself, and it seems unlikely we would have gotten a good photo with our equipment that way.

Later in the morning, I went out to put food in the bird feeder and spotted some movement on a stump in the vacant lot east of our house. I got my camera and slowly walked toward the stump, where I'd spied one of the sagebrush lizards that had been sunning itself.

This is one of the photos I took with the near-maximum zoom. Click through if you want to see the others.

I took several photos at different distances, then slowly crept forward. Eventually I entered the lizard's discomfort zone, though, and it left in a hurry, as lizards do.