When male western green lizards are in love, their face turns blue. This doesn't happen instantly (they can't change color at will like chameleons); the lizards need to shed their old, slightly less colorful (but also very pretty) skin first, and once that is accomplished, they appear in the beautiful "wedding suit" you can see in the photo above.
With this look they try to impress the lady lizards during mating season, which lasts approximately from May to June, but the colors are the most striking in the immediate aftermath of the lizards losing their "old coat". I was very lucky to capture this gorgeous male at this very moment; in fact, you can still see parts of the old, dark skin covering the top of its head and other parts of the body where it hadn't quite come off yet.
But you may believe me when I say that shot was hard earned. The story goes as follows (I have an idea some nature photographer or other in this group will be able to sympathize ;-). This year in May when I hoped to photograph the green lizards around my vacation home with my newly purchased camera, I soon realized something was different from the years before, because I couldn't find a single one of my green friends in their usual spots in my garden.
This came as a nasty shock to me, because after many years of photographing western green lizards - which are my favorite animals and not easy to find - in my garden with an old compact camera that yielded only mediocre results, pretty much the main reason I had bought the new camera in the first place was to finally be able to do the beauty of these gorgeous reptiles justice.
To have these rare creatures in my garden had always been a source of great joy for me (even pride; after all, they had chosen MY garden as their habitat) - but now my favorite residents and stars of the photographic masterpieces I (at least in my mind) was going to produce with my expensive new toy had gone A.W.O.L.
As I eventually would learn over the next few days, the entire western green population had relocated from my garden into a huge fly honeysuckle shrub just outside my garden next to an empty horse pasture. This actually made sense: because there they were relatively safe from the growing number of cats in our village that had specialized in lizard hunting and massacred my poor lizards in ever greater numbers. Up in that shrub, not only was it hard for any ground predators to get at them, but the reptiles also had an excellent 360° view of their surroundings and could see any approaching threat from afar.
Western green lizards are naturally very shy, but this apparently traumatized group now had become hyper-alert to anything getting close to that bush, and they immediately fled into the thickest of the leaves whenever I tried to get near enough for a usable photo. Now, I'm not one to give up easily (and I really, REALLY wanted to get those photos), so I tried every sneaky-stealth-approach technique I could think of (even crawling on all fours - which in hindsight was a terrible idea since all it did was making me look like the world's biggest and ugliest cat to the lizards) - but to no avail.
Completely exasperated, I came up with a new strategy. I would keep that fly honeysuckle shrub under constant observation; like an FBI agent preparing for a crackdown on a suspected Mafia hideout, I was there, watching and waiting, hour after hour, all day long. It took me several days until I had finally figured out at what times of the day the males usually left the fly honeysuckle shrub; I wanted to know their "schedule" so I could be there before them and blend in with the environment, ready to photograph them as soon as they would show up on the ground.
And all my meticulous "lizard-stalking" seemed to pay off: the first day I applied this "method" a gorgeous male showed up just where I expected it to (although Mr Lizard had me waiting for almost two hours!). I was ecstatic - for all but two seconds. As it turned out, in my infinite ineptitude I hadn't considered where the sun would be and had installed myself in such a stupid angle that the lizard was backlit; in all the photos the little devil appeared only as a mostly black silhouette. I cursed my stupidity, tore out my hair and was close to throwing my expensive new camera against a wall in anger and frustration. Then I remembered the cold beer in the fridge and realized that life was still worth living, and I promised myself to do better next time.
The next day I was smart enough to make camp in a spot form where the object of my photographic desire would be perfectly lit (from the lizard's perspective, now I would be the black silhouette against the sun ;-). I waited. And I waited some more. And it was hot and getting hotter by the minute. After nearly 3 hours during which my neighbors started to give me very funny looks (in fact, they had already decided the day before that I must be crazy, what with standing motionless in front of a bush for several hours in the burning sun), around noon, I'd had enough. And that's when I saw something moving in the grass.
And there he was: barely visible through the thick green carpet, but definitely coming towards me. A few seconds later a virtual lizard king appeared, in all his gorgeous green and blue glory, and perfectly lit - and that's when I heard loud, happy voices approaching. Two young boys came running - and the lizard stopped dead in its tracks (unfortunately, it was still a bit too far away for a good photo). I'm not religious, but I started a quick prayer then and there (please God, please: let these kids not be running towards me - PLEASE!!!).
But nope, God apparently remembered that I usually refer to myself as agnostic, and surely enough the two boys ran right to where I was - and where Mr Lizard now wasn't. All that yelling and running was too much for my lizard king: goodbye and "auf Wiedersehen"; see ya next year - and off he went. And that was that. I couldn't believe it; I felt a frustration so intense wash over me I regretted ever having picked up a camera.
As for the kids, don't worry: both boys are alive and well ;-). It was the first day of their Pentecost holiday, and they had just arrived in the village. I was standing next to the empty horse pasture, and the two little boys now innocently asked me where the horsies went (they had obviously been looking forward to seeing them and now were very disappointed). I took a deep breath and muttered that I had no idea.
I don't know how other photographers would have felt in that situation, but I only wanted to be left alone (and possibly tear out what was left of my hair and reconsider that wall and what nice noise it would make upon collision with my camera ;-). Needless to say, the kids had other plans. Now that it was clear that there were no horsies, I had become the main attraction, and they weren't going anywhere. So I swallowed my anger, accepted that - obviously - the kids didn't do anything wrong (and also that I would probably never ever be able to get that desired shot with my new camera).
The boys were eager to know what I was photographing, and so I told them everything about western green lizards, about their amazing colors and how rare and shy they were, and that they were among the largest lizards in Europe and a protected species - and my two new friends became instantly fascinated. Now they wanted to wait and see this magical creature with their own eyes. I assured them there was no chance the lizard would come back after all the noise "we" had made, and just as I said this, one of the boys yelled "I see it!"
And sure enough, he was right. Apparently my lizard king had decided that a little yelling and running wasn't gonna get between him and his favorite sun-basking spot, a little heap of cut, dry grass underneath the fence of the horse pasture.
I told the kids to be very still - which they were - and then we all got to see how this beautiful creature emerged from the grass, very, very slowly and carefully, and positioned itself on the heap of dry grass in such a way that it got the perfect amount of sunlight (in the first photo the sun is still hidden behind the clouds, after that the sunlight became gradually stronger, and you can see well in the photo gallery below how the colors of the lizard change depending on the light).
So in the end I got my portrait shot - and quite a few more in the weeks that followed (which you can find on my website if you're interested). During the remainder of their holiday the two kids would run into me every now and then, and every time they excitedly talked about this fantastic, blue-headed reptile they had seen with me that day.
I guess only time will tell, but I hope this encounter has sparked an interest in nature in them (I have a feeling the next time they spend their holiday in our little village, the horsies will have some reptilian competition ;-)
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