Carolina Anole

If a male Carolina Anole (Anolis carolinensis) performing its dulap-flashing courtship display falls from a great height out of a Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) and hits the boardwalk with a sickening smack, is it wrong to have a America's Funniest Video moment and giggle? Well, it happened at the Audubon Center at Francis Beidler Forest...

...and we giggled once we moved in for a closeup and the lizard flipped back on to its feet. Stunned, it was caught in a color phase shift between pleasant green and man-that-hurt-and-I'm-embarrassed brown.

Nature is a tough place. Earlier we spotted a Southern Black Racer (Coluber constrictor priapus) moving through the dry, upland forest. As it slithered by, we noticed it had a sizeable kink in its body. At some point in its past it survived an attack. The snake seemed none the worse for wear as it inspected one Dwarf Palmetto (Sabal minor) after another, possibly searching for treefrogs as shown in the April 15th entry.