Animal Stories

It has been so hard to get pictures of iguanas. Then yesterday afternoon as I returned from the office, an iguana lay on its belly in the driveway, with its back legs stretched out behind, and just watched me. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. It's like they know. However, today one came up the drive into our courtyard area, slurping bugs as it walked. It posed for pictures, then kept on coming, right up Tom's steps and onto the edge of his porch. I got lots of good pictures. I think it was the same iguana.

It's funny that for the first two weeks I never saw an iguana. Then I started getting glimpses, but they always ran, legs flailing (in a way it reminds me of Dino from the Flintstones). Now I see them quite often and they let me get closer and take pictures. It's almost as if they sensed someone new and had to get used to me.

Other things have changed. For awhile a type of bird would sing chirpily at and just after dark, then they would stop and the coqui (tree frogs) would sing for a couple hours before giving way to the sounds of insects. Just this week I stopped hearing the birds at that hour, and the coqui don't sing nearly as much.

There is a bird here that sounds like a distressed kitten. It's a black bird -- maybe some kind of grackle. It calls as it flies through the trees, and it makes me think a hawk is carrying away a kitten. The sound just pierces my heart.