Reptiles

I've encountered many wild reptiles, most totally harmless and benign, some very hostile and threatening. Though I appreciate them all. One time I had a powerful experience releasing a gopher snake into a gopher hole. With a couple of days, no more gopher problem in that area. I appreciate the web of life and always want to find ways to harmonize with the food chain and find beneficial natural predators to do the pest management.

Desert Wild Lizard Encounters

So far I have seen countless lizards out in the desert, they all seem to be the same or a very similar species. They have the perfect camo to blend in with the yellowish white desert sand, with tiled speckles to approximate the rocks on the terrain. I've seen ones that were very small, about 1 to 2 inches in length, up to very large ones about a foot long. I've seen them climb like ninjas on bushes, in attempts to breech my garden security perimeter walls, on plants that they were devouring.

I've seen them both compete and cooperate with each other. Mostly they seem to get along and often move in groups with a significant amount of social dynamics. I'm not an expert, I've just always been a fan. They do great work in the garden under the right conditions. Back in the city, I had much bigger and more open to the the wild gardens, I could afford plenty of "sacrificial" crops. It was more than worth it to share the garden with beneficial predators in trade for the great work they do to minimize pests.

I've always been happy to create rockeries for reptiles to enjoy shade and security in the garden so they could have a base from which to patrol for insects. It wasn't until being out here in the desert where the competition over anything with water is so fierce that I had to buffer them out. It was here that I would see them break into the garden and devour pumpkin leaves and anything else fresh and leafy they could get to. It was quite thrilling to watch the skill with which they performed their operations, nothing less than wild natural ninjitsu. To see them in action was worth the loss of a few pumpkin leaves, which when they're needs are met, can be quite abundant and regenerative.

I'm finding a good balance for now as my systems are very small scale, eventually as I can afford to scale up, I'll be parterning with them much more and providing for more of their needs in trade for their ninja patrol in the garden.