“Lizards of every temper, style, and color dwell here, seemingly as happy and companionable as the birds and squirrels.”      ~ John Muir

Lizards? It’s bit of a stretch, I know. So how does a lizard fit into a weather column? Read on…

Weekly, I search for a perfect and fitting quotation. John Muir got the prestigious place this week as they complement the subject of lizards.

Mr. Muir would come down to the flatlands after long stretches of time spent trapping through the rugged Sierra “when Muir needed a warm place to recoup his strength,” according his biographer Donald Worster.

Sun-kissed Los Angeles and Pasadena fit the bill. They provided a welcome desert dryness, a counterpoint to the cold and oxygen-thin high-country. While here, he could “sleep on luxuriant white sheets, wear a fresh garden rose in his buttonhole, eat and drink rich foods and wine, and be chauffeured around town in a new automobile.” His above observation was written during such a visit.

Recently many areas across the southland have set records temperature-wise. Summer seems ahead of schedule. While in the yard yesterday, Brighton brought me a gift … a Southern fence lizard (blue-belly). Being a retriever she gently gave it to me; not a scale was damaged! These and alligator lizards are commonly found in Southern California. Being reptiles, they come to life with the warmer weather. La Crescenta has a healthy population of lizards. They live and breed among the rocks, eating spiders (including black widows), insects, slugs, crickets, each other, etc. Back in the day, during the summer we would climb down into the wash to catch lizards. Finding a blue-bellied one was to be envied.

A reprieve from the heat is predicted for the weekend with temps 10-15 degrees cooler than normal. Northerly winds will make for clear skies. Come next week, a rise in temperatures is forecast. Keep in mind as you venture out, besides the local lizards, rattlesnakes are enjoying the warmth of summer.

Sue Kilpatrick is a Crescenta Valley
resident and Official Skywarn Spotter for the
National Weather Service Reach her at suelkilpatrick@gmail.com.

  Sue Kilpatrick