Return of the Mediterranean Gecko

This little gecko spooked out from under the front door sill, when I went out to get the morning newspaper recently.

At  first I only saw the striped tail, and thought it was a desert native Banded Gecko.

But then I noticed the bumps along its sides and recognized it as a Mediterranean Gecko, like the one we found in our house back in June 2012.


That particular gecko had lost its tail during an encounter with one of our cats. I was curious to know if this was the same gecko, or if we perhaps had a population of these non-native geckos living in our yard.


Here is a picture of that first gecko. (This pic was taken under indoor light, so the coloring cannot be accurately compared between the 2 images.)


After enlarging, rotating and  comparing the images side by side we really couldn't match up any of the markings.



If this is the same gecko from last summer it has gained weight, grown back its lost tail, and changed its markings. If it's a different individual, then we may have a breeding population of Mediterranean Geckos living in our yard.



"I am the Lizard King. I can do anything."
~ Jim Morrison, from the The Celebration of the Lizard King

Fall Weather

The daylight hours are getting shorter, and our weather has cooled considerably. White-crowned Sparrows have returned to the desert for the winter - we've been hearing them singing on our morning walks for a week now.

There has been a fresh rush of plant growth with the cooler temperatures. A patch of Sacred Datura has sprung up beneath our mesquite trees. One of our column cacti has added at least 2 inches in height. And there's plenty of weeding to catch up on...

" I love Autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it."  ~Lee Maynard

Monsoon Skies

Our desert monsoon weather creates some beautiful clouds...

"There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds."
~ G. K. Chesterton   English author, poet, journalist  (1874-1936)

Desert Deluge

We had a rainstorm of near-Biblical proportions this afternoon.

The skies opened up and dumped 2 inches of rain in our area, in just over an hour.

The water level in our pool came up over 3/4" in a half hour, during the heaviest part of the deluge.

Our front landscaping includes a constructed wash, to quickly move water out of our enclosed courtyard. Normally the wash is just a decorative feature, but this afternoon it worked like a charm.

One of the neat things about rain in the desert, is how vibrant everything looks after a rainstorm.

Probably just due to the desert dust being washed off of everything.

Our Red Barrel Cactus looked especially colorful after its bath.












The rain eventually tapered off to a gentle sprinkle before finally moving off to the northeast. We were left with a gorgeous sunset.

There is a possibility of more rain tomorrow...

"Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain, I've a smile on my face.
I walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
Just singin', singin' in the rain."
~ Singing in the Rain, lyrics by Arthur Freed

Sail On, Sailor

Went out to clean our swimming pool after a BIG dusty overnight windstorm, and found this little guy adrift and clinging to an inflatable raft in the middle of the pool.

Not sure if he was blown into the pool, and managed to crawl up onto the raft?








Doesn't seem like he would be there by choice...

I carefully maneuvered the raft over to the edge of the pool, so I could move him to a safer location.

As I put my hands out to pick him up, he looked right at me, reared up on his back legs and pulled his front legs tight against his upper body.

If I were 2 inches tall, that would have been pretty intimidating...

He eventually calmed down and stepped into my hand, so I could relocate him to our nearby flower garden.

He'll be a lot happier there.
:-)










"I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean
Through restful waters and deep commotion
Often frightened, unenlightened
Sail on, sail on sailor."

Lyrics from "Sail On, Sailor", written by Brian Wilson, Ray Kennedy, Tandyn Almer, Jack Rieley and Van Dyke Parks. From the Beach Boys album "Holland" (1973)

The "Other" Blue Moon

Tonight's full moon is a "Blue Moon".
Spoiler alert: it's not really blue.

Blue Moon on 20 August 2013.

Most of us are familiar with the definition of a Blue Moon as being a second full moon that occurs during the course of a calendar month. Since the moon's phase cycle is 29.5 days, it's easy to see this doesn't happen very often - hence the saying "Once in a Blue Moon". But there are actually 2 kinds of Blue Moon, and tonight's full moon is the second kind.

It's only August 20th, so this can't be the second full moon in August.
Here's what's going on...

Occasionally there are 13 full moons in a year. This means that one of the seasons (spring, summer, autumn, or winter) will have 4 full moons instead of 3. The full moon tonight is the 3rd of 4 full moons this summer. Since the 3 regular full moons have names (in this case: early-summer, mid-summer and late-summer) the odd 4th moon is called "Blue Moon" It is thought that the name Blue comes from the word belewe which means "betrayer".

Photographers note: I took this pic of the moon by holding our point-and-shoot camera up to the eyepiece of our 25 power field scope. We were really surprised at the detail it picked up on the lunar surface. The rays of the crater Tycho show up amazingly well (lower center). The crater Copernicus is evident too (left of center at about 9:00), as well as the crater Kepler towards the left edge at about 3:30.


For a more thorough explanation of the two types of Blue Moon:
www.space.com/22404-blue-moon-science-august-full-moon.html


"Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone,
  Without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own..."
~ written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

Another Smoky Sunset

Smoke from the Silver Fire, near Banning.
(The UFO-looking shape is an artifact from the camera lens.)

For an interactive map and current information about US and international wildfires:

http://www.esri.com/services/disaster-response/wildlandfire/latest-news-map