Country diary: appreciating the minutiae of a lizard's life

Buxton, Derbyshire: If careful, you can closely observe tiny details, such as how their scales glisten individually in the sunThe perimeter to the old reservoir at Lightwood is outlined by a semi-circular wooden fence and in late summer it acquires a secondary purpose as the favourite sunbathing spot for the area's common lizards. Some days there can be more than a dozen dotted along the broad-topped beams.There are many pleasures to common lizards. For one, they have such gloriously varied colours, with black, chocolate, toffee or mustard longitudinal stripes etched along bodies of grey, beige, sometimes almost mossy green and rich caramel. Another pleasure earlier in summer is to watch the barrel-bellied gravid females warming their unborn embryos, which emerge directly as babies rather than as eggs (hence the species' old name, viviparous lizard). Continue reading...