Last week I saw a couple people posting on social media about an unusually late winter storm that dropped a bunch of snow up in the northern United States. But down here in the south, summer has pretty much come to stay for awhile. Most days are in the upper 80s or lower 90s and even the nights are warm. With the warmer weather, we are seeing lots of reptiles out and about. My neighbor, the gopher tortoise has been out of her burrow quite a bit, anoles are running around wherever you go, frogs are hopping (they’re actually amphibians, but also ”cold blooded”), and lizards are running around on the trees. The other day when I got home I had both a five lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) and this Eastern fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus) circling around on one of my live oak trees. I had a fence lizard that used to be on my front gate almost every afternoon when I got home back in 2020. I didn’t see any around at all last year, so it made me very happy to see this guy. I know it’s a male because he extended his dewlap several times while I was approaching him (unfortunately, I couldn’t get a photo of him with it extended), and only the males have the bright blue dewlap. If you look carefully at the photos, you can see a touch if the bright blue under his chin. It may get a little too warm for some folks around here, but for the rest of us and for the reptiles it’s perfect!