Fritzes . . .

I had written earlier about the absence of any of the fence lizards.  We call all of those lizards Fritz or plural Fritzes.

Well, the weather has heated up and cold blooded animals are out and about.  Fritzes fall into that category.  Also along with the Fritzes are their arch enemies, snakes.  All I have seen of snakes is one little one when I was repairing a sprinkler control valve leak.  He was in the control box enclosure.  He died of a severe case of shovel breaking his back.

I was walking along the sidewalk along the North side of the house,  Judie had piled up some branches from the oak trees out front.  I reached down to pick them up and spied a full grown Fritz looking up at me.  I picked up the sticks and he then took off into the bushes.

Later I saw another Fritz run up one of our oak tree in the front yard.  They tend to do that to pick various insects that reside in the trees.  It is also spot for them to cool off and their coloring blends in with the bark of the tree.  So it is sort of a defensive maneuver for them.

Since then I have seen several of the lizards in various sizes so they have not left us.  They have just come out of hiding and the warm air provokes their activity.

It is good to see they are abundant and living around us.  We also see an occasional Chameleon lizard roaming around.  But they are not as common as our Fritzes.   And the Fritzes love crickets and keep those little pests under control.

Seeing Fritzes running about tells me summer has really arrived.