What Scat is That?

How good are your "scat skills"--the ability to identify an animal's presence by scat alone.  I thought I was pretty good at it.  I even have a scat collection.  Eww! But last month I was stumped by the presence of some pretty distinctive scat on the deck.

The top photo was over two inches long and the bottom photo was about half that size.  Seeing the whitish area in the scat made me think of birds, but if a bird flew over and dropped the scat, it would be circular shaped. Plop! Plus the most logical choice, a hummingbird, would not have this large of a dropping.

So this quickly became a mystery to solve.  Over several days, I kept sweeping away this type of scat of varying sizes.  That became a clue.  Whatever it was, the adult and juvenile at this time of year (late summer) must be of vastly different sizes.  Again, that would eliminate birds.

I then focused on the whitish area, similar to bird droppings.  The white is the uric acid excreted from the body with feces.  This occurs in birds, but having eliminated birds for the reasons stated above, I thought of a closely related group--reptiles.

So was this a snake or lizard?  I don't often see snakes on our deck but have seen lizards, so this seemed more likely....but which one.  Here is where observation comes into the story.  After observing the scat, our family was watching the deck for other signs or the animal itself.  Finally, we saw the culprits---Five-lined skinks.  We saw the adults and the smaller, blue-tailed juveniles.

From Wikipedia

In an effort to verify our scat identification, I consulted two comprehensive reptile field guides.  Neither contained information about scat.  So I went to the internet, and of course found scat photos similar to mine.  The photographer guessed it was a reptile but did not cite any evidence or identify the species..

Being "into" scat, I think more should be reported for all types of species.  This is one thing the animal leaves behind that can indicate its presence.  I do have field guides to scat. Most focus on larger mammals, and I have never seen lizards listed.  Since this is a gap in our knowledge, maybe I'll start my own field guide someday!

Scat is so interesting, and it is fun to name all the synonyms...which I shall not list here...another project for another day!

Seeing Nature in Europe

I have been away from this blog all summer--my how time flies! Now is time to write about "What I did on my summer vacation"---remember all those grade school prompts!  I spent much of June in Europe with three traveling companions.  It was a marvelous, once-in-a-lifetime trip.  During the adventure, my goal was to find nature and find out about conservation issues in other countries.  The problem is, there was so much to see and do, and so little nature in my estimation, that I often forgot that goal until reminded by the companions. So what follows (and the next couple of blogs) is what I observed on my summer vacation.

We flew into Rome on an overnight flight (I didn't sleep), checked into the hotel and lined up for our first tour of the Colosseum and Roman ruins.  I know I was bleary-eyed but saw little to speak of at first.

Then we went to Palatine Hill, the birthplace of Rome, and immediately I noticed this tree.  Its familiar leaf shape and sheen was apparent to me.  An olive tree!  I am familiar with the autumn olive that is the invasive species in the midwest, and this tree was so similar.  We would see many groves of olive trees and vineyards in the landscape of Rome and Tuscany.

As it so happens, we stayed in a B and B overlooking the countryside.  Across the road was a grove of olive trees and I noticed the farmer cultivating these fields like mid western farmers would for a corn field.  As I walked through the grove, I saw many beautiful flowers....some resembled the roadside plants (wild carrot and chickory) in the U.S., but I don't know what any of them were.

Notice the bright blue sky.  It was rather warm in Italy, much like home.  This leguminous plant was growing wild everywhere.  If you know what it is, let me know. 

And I like the way the sun is shining on this purple flower.











Also in the grove were insects and spiders.  I soon spied this web.  The bowl and doily web contained a small spider which I could not identify.  I did not take field guides on the trip because I packed so light--just a small backpack. 

From our B and B I heard a few birds, not many, and this was surprising to me.  We were a couple of miles from a small medieval village, and there were plants all around.  Where were the birds and other animals? I heard the collared dove, which is an invasive in the U.S. and probably in Italy as well.  It's loud coo tends to cover up any other birds.

We saw pigeons in the village....many of them, around a polluted fountain. 

And I finally was able to photograph a lizard.  I had seen many, but they scurried too fast.  This one had lost part of its tail, perhaps slowing it down..





In general I had been disappointed in the amount of wildlife I could easily observe, but it made me appreciate what we have back home.



Soon, we would go to Cinque Terra....the National Park in Italy.  Maybe that would lead to more animal sightings!