The scaly sausage came out of winter hiding again yesterday, so have some #LizardPosting

I checked to see if he was hungry with an offering of a couple of blackberries as a treat. He happily ate those and then went roaming around his enclosure looking for more, but I didn't want to give any more food just yet because feeding in winter can cause problems with incomplete digestion.

Since he was feeling active though I decided to get him out for a bit. Naturally this ended up, as it always does, with me with a lizard on my head.

A rare winter appearance of the scaly sausage. He came out of his hide and was active for about half an hour before heading back to bed shortly after his lamps turned off for the evening. I was pleased to see that he looks to be in good condition. It'll probably still be another month or so before he really comes out of brumation and his activity levels return to normal.

Thanks to winter brumation it had been a few weeks since I'd seen Jerry, and had no evidence from the temperature sensors that he's been out in that time either, so I lifted up his basking rock to check on him. He just gave me "what do you want?" look, so I lowered the rock again and let him be.

Having been rudely awoken he did come out from under his rock a few minutes later, but he just did a quick circuit of his enclosure to check all was in order before going back to bed.

Nice to see this guy again now that I'm back home.

Now that it's winter he is spending most of the time sleeping, but is still coming out every now and then for a drink and a brief look around.

Geckos! Spotted loads of these tonight in Padova, hanging out near lights waiting for moths. iNaturalist reckons they are Moorish Geckos (Tarentola mauritanica). Quite large, by gecko standards.

I got the scaly sausage out of his enclosure for a check up this evening. He is at least partially brumating (hibernating) now so I'm not seeing him out and about very often, but I did know that he shed his skin recently and I wanted to check that he got it all off. Just as well I did as, very unusually for him, he did have some stuck shed on one of his toes and the tip of his tail.

Doing all of this was made considerably more difficult by Jerry's very strong preference for draping himself across the back of my neck or perching precariously on top of my head instead of hanging out where I can see him properly.

When Jerry is out of his enclosure pretty much the only thing that will stop him constantly trying to wander off to find a nook and/or cranny to hide in is his fleece guinea pig bed. He will, sometimes, just hang out in there, and he may even accept some chin scritches while he's doing so.

An overdue return to #LizardPosting: I spotted this adorable baby water dragon on my way to get lunch a short while ago.

A #Photography from #Brisbane's botanical gardens. The #LizardPosting is tack-sharp, which I'd have struggled to capture with my #Nikon D800. The autofocus square isn't filled with the subject at 24mm, and the D800 would back-focus on the AFS 14-24, regardless of AF fine tuning under those conditions.

The D850's AF autotune is magnificent, nailing a narrow focus at f2.8, and highlight-weighted metering gives rich velvety darks, and unblown lights.

This little skink turned up in our dining room this evening, so I scooped them up and released them outside. I'm fairly sure this is a Weasel Skink (Saproscinus mustelinus), and I'm also fairly sure I've had to do exactly the same thing with a skink of the same species that appeared in the same room before.