Oriental Garden Lizard

An Oriental Garden Lizard

The Oriental Garden Lizard is widely distributed throughout Asia and has also been introduced to many other parts of the world. It is an insectivore which is often incorrectly referred to as the bloodsucker due to it's red throat. More images and info after the jump.

An Oriental Garden Lizard

The coloration of these lizards vary from an uniform brownish or greenish olive or yellowish. The ground colour of the lizard is generally a light brownish olive but the lizard can change it to bright red or black or even a mixture of the two. This change is sometimes confined to the head but can also be distributed throughout the body and tail. Black streaks radiate from the eye and some of them are continued over the throat, running obliquely backwards. These bright changeable colours are peculiar to the male during breeding season. 

It is very common in Sri Lanka and the specimens found on the island seem to be relatively large. A specimen measuring 16 inches has been recorded in Sri Lanka. 

An Oriental Garden Lizard

Males are highly territorial during the mating season. They are known to discourage intruding males by brightening their red heads. The males try to attract females by inflating their throats and drawing attention to its coloured head. About 10 - 20 eggs are laid and buried in moist soil. The eggs are long, covered with leathery skin and are known to hatch in about 6 - 7 weeks. 

The lizard is known to feed on insects, and small vertebrates, including rodents and other lizards. The lizards teeth are designed to grip prey and not to tear it up. Prey is swallowed whole after it has been captured and stunned by shaking it vigorously. 

 

A male Oriental Garden Lizard

These images were shot in Kandy, with the Canon 7D and the 100 - 400mm lens.

Mating Sri Lankan Rat Snakes

We have had Rat Snakes (more commonly called gerandiya's) in our garden for as long as I can remember. They are non-venomous snakes that feed on all sorts of reptiles, insects, birds and small mammals. Although I had been seeing them quite frequently, I had never seen them mating till last December. More info and images inside.

I was walking around the garden, with the camera in my hand, when I came across these two fairly large specimens mating. Since I hadn't seen two rat snakes of opposite sexes at the same time, I was quite surprised by the difference in colour. I'm still not a 100% sure if the colour is dependant on the sex as, according to some web sites, there seems to be a variation depending on the age of the snake.

As shown in the image above, the lower three quarters of the snakes bodies were entwined throughout. However, their fore-bodies were raised almost all the time. According to the gardener they had been in this position for a couple of hours. Although this statement has to be taken with a pinch of salt, they would have been locked in this manner for a considerable amount of time. They finally separated and quite literally went their own ways. After a short time the male (darker in colour) changed direction and followed the female. He was followed by a second male who was much smaller and hadn't been noticed by us. The second male may have been attracted to the area as a result of the pheromones being released.

The shot above shows the lower part of the two snakes. 

According to one of the websites I was reading, these snakes produce a variety of sounds, ranging from a hiss to a low growl! They also discharge a bad odour when they feel threatened. 

The rat snake is oviparous and clutches contain 9-14 eggs. Females are known to guard the eggs and incubation takes around 60 days. These snakes can also climb trees. When confronted their initial reaction is to escape as soon as possible but if cornered they can bite. Although they are non venomous, their bite can cause wounds.

These images were taken with a Canon 7D and a canon 100-400mm lens. The light wasn't great as the snakes were in the shadows and the garden in the background was quite bright. The snakes were also moving around a fair bit and getting a sharp capture was not easy. A flash would have been helpful but I didn't have one with me. I didn't want to use the on camera flash as it would have "flattened" the image.

Red-vented Bulbul

Click here for another image of the Red-vented Bulbul.

The Red-vented Bulbul is the most common of the bulbuls found in Sri Lanka. It is a frequent garden visitor in viallages and even in densley populated cities. It is a resident breeder in southern asia and has been introduced and established itself in the wild in many pacific islands. Due to its ability to establish itself in new environments, it has been included  among the worlds worst invasive spiecies list.

The Red-vented bulbul is easily identified by its short crest which gives the head a squarish appearance.The body is dark brown with a scaly pattern while the head is darker or black. Sexes are similar in plumage but young birds are duller than adults.

Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-vented_Bulbul