At first, we didn't even know she was a desert grassland whiptail lizard.  Never heard of that species.  Thought is was a fast moving gecko.  Had I not seen the diving exhibition with my  own two incredulous eyes, I would not have believed it. Hearing it from anyone else would have been cause to doubt the teller's veracity....

There are two key parts to the tale, part one being the small lizards that live on our southeastern Arizona desert acreage in abundance. We see them frequently, sometimes pausing long enough for us to count the stripes that run lengthwise down their bodies (six) and sometimes scurrying with incredible speed to safety/cover under a stand of bunchgrass or a handy structure such as one of our steel storage sheds. Like I said, we ignorantly thought of them as geckos, but that they are not.

Geckos, among other things, have large, handsome, celebrity worthy heads like our pet leopard gecko, Missy. Now there's a gecko!

If our co-residents on the land aren't geckos, then what are they? A bit of online research provided the answer: They quite clearly appear to be a variety of lizard called (by humans anyway) the Desert Grassland Whiptail. Or as the average local coyote probably refers to them, Too-Fast-Lunch-That-Got-Away. Those little guys and gals can move. Oh, wait! The guys are gals! Huh. Definitely TMI, Too Much Information for this Hub, but (according to Wikipedia at least), this is an all female species....

Part Two of the tale involves a shovel and a garden hose. One day early this week, I began digging a hole some three feet in diameter. Never mind the reason for now; that can (someday) be the topic for another Hub. The important aspect of such a hole in caliche soil like ours, though, is that you don't just dig it. Instead, you dig a while, add water, let it soak down, dig some more, add more water...like that. When the hole was about 14 inches deep and hitting some serious hardpan, we decided to fire up one of the generators and start our new well to pumping water for several hours.

This was advisable due to the fact that the well water was quite cloudy-dirty and needed to be cleaned out. Pumping a few thousand gallons would do the trick, as shown by the difference in the three five-gallon bottles we filled--one at the start of pumping, one two hours later, and one four hours later. The improved clarity (from left to right) is pretty obvious in the photo and even more obvious "in person". Two more pumping sessions (this was the second such) should provide us with crystal clear potable water "well" worth drinking (pun intended).

Since we would have water running for hours on end, it only made sense to use part of that to fill the hole to the brim. The clay around here doesn't let that seep out very quickly; it would take hours to drop inches and overnight to reduce to the consistency of mud (without standing water) for easy digging. In the meantime, a pond three feet across had suddenly manifested in the desert...and numerous beings began flocking to it. Mosquitoes no doubt; there are only a few here--where they find standing water in which to breed is a mystery, but a few do make themselves known from time to time. They're not terribly welcome, and we know that a still, muddy-water pond lasting even a week would produce a hatch of many more.

Another group of unwelcome visitors were the oversized yellowjacket wasps that thought they were mud wasps. Or at any rate, they came to drink and stayed to explore the mud. They are beautiful in their own way, not aggressive at all except in late summer or fall, and truly only interested in the moisture at this time, but Pam is deathly allergic to them. We could have done without those.

On the other hand, an absolute cloud of tiny, blue butterflies--quite possibly Summer Azure Butterflies from the look of them, though those aren't supposed to be this far West--also flocked to the mini-pond, fluttering above and about in aerial ecstasy. A stunning sight, and one I was attempting to capture on film when the true magic occurred. A sizeable lizard meandered over to the pond, eased down to water's edge, took a sip...and dived right in like a ten year old at the old swimming hole!

At first, I thought the little reptile had fallen in, but after watching several exact repetitions, there could be no doubt: This animal that had most likely never even seen surface water in its lifetime was a natural Olympic diving champion. Fascinated (and quite frankly excited), I snagged a folding chair and sat down on the far side of the pond to observe.

Thankfully, the diving lizard seemed to pay little attention to me as long as I sat fairly quietly. The sound of the camera's drive and shutter snap triggered no alarms. Even so, there were two challenges. For one, I work on the cheap with no capacity card or chip or whatever it's called in the camera, which means that the bare camera will take at least half a dozen shots at a time--and sometimes thirty, a mystery I've never understood--but at some point, it will announce "Memory Full". When that happens, the only options are to either (a) delete one or more of the photos already taken, (b) stop long enough to fire up the generator, fire up the computer, and load the photos from the camera onto the computer (!), or (c) give it up for the time being.

The other challenge involves pure speed. While the lizard seemed to be enjoying itself, it's natural rhythm of approach-sip-dive-retreat-dry-repeat still didn't take that long per go-round. I never did manage to snap the "perfect" shot, i.e. one that would show the reptile in mid-dive with only part of the body into the water on the downward plunge. How many times would it repeat this remarkable process? And how did it know enough to hold its nose, or whatever diving lizards do? An equally great shot would have been one that showed the diver just emerging, because with each drop, the animal went completely under water and did not surface for two or three seconds. Nope, never got one of those, either.

Luckily--and I credit luck far more than skill for this one--a great closeup did happen. With the telephoto lens set to its maximum 3X setting, the camera caught Diving Darcy just as she nosed down over the top of the bank to head toward the surface of the water.

When I first realized what a treasure I'd acquired in the above photo, one thing that leaped out from the picture was the set of Freddy Krueger knives those feet sport as claws. The front feet aren't anything at which to scoff, but--despite the tips being out of the frame--check out those back feet. Checking other online photos of this type of lizard provided confirmation: The Desert Grassland Whiptail has one extra long claw as part of each back foot. It's just a guess, but those Short Sword Toes might play a significant part in the animal's speed and ability to change direction without notice.

After that one lucky shot, I kept messing up. Wait one second too long for the perfect shot and miss the lizard entirely, getting nothing but dirt. Back off the telephoto lens too far so that you had to squint to see an animal at all. Fail to delete a butterfly shot in time so that the camera's memory was full and a super shot was missed.

Even so, there were a few more shutter clicks worth saving.

 That last photo (above) shows Diving Darcy almost but not quite up out of the water, just a touch of her long, whiplike tail still to emerge from the diving pool.  A little closer telephoto shot would have been better, but I'll take it, especially since that turned out to be her final dive of the day.  She had made at least a dozen dives in rhythmic succession, allowing just a couple of minutes between them to dry off while hidden in the nearest bunchgrass clump. After this one, though, she went through that clump and out the other side, moving easily but quickly to a more distant clump, where she disappeared and did not return.

Imagine:  A desert reptile, supposedly unfamiliar with actual water except perhaps a mud puddle after a rainstorm.  A clear sense of enjoyment, maybe even fun, yet with the mature self discipline to limit her recreation to something like half an hour.  Then off to the supermarket for supper or whatever duty called her.

What's next? A raven misbehavin'?  A coyote with a boat?  Something tells me our interaction with the area wildlife will have more surprises.  Hopefully, the camera will be at hand and ready to record.

Thanks for reading,

Ghost32