This blog seems to be often focused on the adventures in wildlife I’ve encountered since coming to California. This entry is no exception to that trend. It’s not my fault–we just keep having weird animal “encounters.”

On Thursday, we had the Rat Guy come by to check the traps in the attic and seal a few more holes in the garage. While he was doing that, I noticed that we had an Alligator Lizard of some sort, trying to escape under the new weather-stripping on the garage door. That weather-stripping was just recently added to keep the rats out, as a matter of fact, but apparently it was working to keep this lizard in.

I saw him there, with his head under part of the stripping and decided not to bother him. He was, it seemed, trying to go and I have no problem with that. Besides, Alligator Lizards are harmless.

This morning, however, I looked in that corner and noticed he was still there. Uh-oh. I thought maybe he was dead, since he looked to be in about the same position as last I’d seen. I called Christopher to remove the possibly dead beastie.

Again, just like the one in the pool, I was wrong. It wasn’t dead, but it was stuck. It seems that when they put the stripping on they not only used large bolts, they also used some sort of heavy-duty glue, and the poor guy’s head was stuck on it. Christopher removed that piece of stripping and, with a little help from me, trimmed around the lizard’s head. It was free, but now wearing a rubber chapeau: View image and View image.

Obviously, we couldn’t just let him (or her) back out into the wild like that, even if he did look fashionable sporting his jaunty black “hat.” But lizards have delicate skin so we couldn’t just pry the “hat” off either. I found a website that said vegetable oil was good for removing glue from lizards and snakes and Christopher called two vets to get their opinions–one had no clue, the other, a snake specialist, wanted us to bring it in to have it surgically removed at some expense. We decided to give the oil a try: View image.

It took a bit of time and veg oil, but the glue did weaken, and soon the “hat” came off, with minimal lizard-head damage. Here it is after it was free and had decided to attack the cotton ball Christopher was using to remove the extra oil: View image.

Christopher took the lizard down to the nearby canyon (where he took that snake before) and released him. We decided that was better than releasing him into the back yard for Benito to find. Before he left, though, we did try to identify the kind of lizard he was. Best guess is an Oregon Alligator Lizard, though one site says they’re not supposed to be around here. Sure looked like the picture, though.

Another week, another strange animal tale from Southern California. Next week I’m guessing a flock of escaped parrots will nest in our eaves or one of the mountain lions in the city will come for a visit. You just never know.