The Tragic Cost of Mud Plaster In December

"Where oh where is my tail?"

Recently I plastered a portion of an adobe wall at the cabin.  I used a traditional recipe: dirt, water, horse manure.  A friend brought me a truckload of dirt from a particular locality that my father indicated was the appropriate mix of clay and sand for good earth plaster.  The dirt has been sitting in a squat pile in front of the cabin for two years, looking pretty much like a boring pile of dirt, just like so many others sitting in the front yards of NM homes.

Anyway, I was mixing mud a few weeks ago, at the beginning of December, an interesting time for most NM reptiles.  Nights are regularly freezing or below, but days are warm -into the 70's.  Most herps decide to find a cold, safe spot and hunker down for the next few months, but a few are still out.  They are taking advantage of those last good basking hours and hunting the diversity of insects following the same strategy.

I was also taking advantage of the bask worthy temperatures and so, there I was, digging into my pile of dirt, tossing it against a screen to get rid of rock and gravel.  Every so often, something would bounce off the screen rather than smack and slide down.   The bouncers were lizards - I have never seen so many in one place at one time.  After unearthing five and injuring two (so sorry!), I decided I would have to stop - no more plastering in December! 

Over my short lifetime, I've investigated many piles of rocks and found many lizards (and snakes).  I've never found lizards fully surrounded by dirt.  In the end, it's not unusual.  This was soft dirt, very diggable, and probably enticing as a quiet spot with stable temperatures.  Because of the fire this past spring and the giant cobble/boulder dike only 100 yards away, I would have guessed that a lot of the local reptiles would seek winter hibernacula there. 

Although I didn't do much plastering, and now have to do extra good deeds to make up for the lost tails, the big plus was finding three different kinds of lizards without much work: a juvenile Madrean alligator lizard (Elgaria kingii), Cnemidophorus flagellicaudus and C. uniparens.   I took photos of everyone and will post some info about these guys in a few weeks. 

Stay tuned for this year's herpetological version of meet the locals...