Anole In The Limelight

All photographers learn to enjoy light. These upright elephant ears (some form of alocasia) are so beautifully backlit they would be interesting even without the patterned raindrops and veining and the anole’s shadow.

But I’m not complaining about the photobombing anole. I like the spreading toes (I’m scared of snakes, so lizard toes are always a reassurance) and it interests me how our minds interpret height from the strength of the shadow. We know the head is raised because the shadow is softer – it’s a three dimensional shadow, not a flat one.

This green anole lizard was benefiting from the vision and hard work of Jesse Yancy, a literary gentleman who has raised a garden / wildlife haven on land around the edge of a small, concrete car park that he does not own in Belhaven, Mississippi.

His blog, Mississippi Sideboard, gives little hint of the richness and diversity of the garden he cultivates, other than being a repository for folksy, home-cooked Southern recipes that use ingredients his guerilla garden produces. Here’s a link to his just-gilding-the-sweet-potato-a-bit recipe or, if you prefer, the simplest of cornbread recipes, written so evocatively you may not even spot it’s a recipe at all. Use his search box to discover more.

Back in the garden, disturbed by my attention, the anole retreated to a favourite leaf where it could peer out without revealing too much. The shape of its body pulling against the leaf reminded me of one of those carnivorous trumpet pitcher plants with a capped top (sarracenia). No doubt the anole had insect-catching on its mind.

Shared as part of Becky’s January Squares: Limelight