A fierce alligator lizard (Shallow Thoughts)

A fierce alligator lizard

A short hike today to Lake Ranch above Los Gatos gave us nice views of three killdeer, a duck family with six ducklings, a hunting egret and a host of other birds. But on the way back, we met an unusual little fellow on the trail.

It was a young alligator lizard, one of the smallest I've seen -- which is still fairly sizeable for a lizard, maybe eight or ten inches long including the long slim tail.

In typical alligator lizard fashion, it was lying motionless on the trail. So in typical Dave and Akkana fashion, we whipped out our cameras and switched into macro mode.

Alligator lizards are normally very placid. It's hard to get them to move under any circumstances, as long as you don't touch them. You can shoot photos from all angles, get the camera right up where you have to shoot a panorama to get the whole tail in, move around to the other side and get a different angle, and the lizard won't move.

Imagine our surprise, then, when the little one opened its mouth and started threatening us!

Dave pulled back his camera (it's his a new toy, so I was letting him shoot the up-close macros while I stayed what I thought was a comfortable foot away) and the beast turned on me and started advancing, mouth still open. I snapped a few shots while pulling back slowly. Then he made a rush for me.

I pulled my camera, and fingers, up out of his reach -- supposedly alligator lizards can bite, though it's hard to see any evidence of teeth in the photos -- and he rushed my shoes. I lifted the foot he was headed for, and he darted under my shoe, turned on a dime and skittered toward Dave's hiking shoe. But I guess when he got there he didn't find it quite as vulnerable as he'd hoped, so he turned again and ran off toward the side of the trail, leaving us stunned -- and doubled over with laughter.

I actually tried to shoot a video of his advance, but once he rushed me I was too busy getting out of his way and missed most of the action. Evidently I'm not quite ready to shoot those National Geo documentaries.

That's a bit of dry leaf on his forehead, in case you're wondering.

Here's what Dave was doing that got the little lizard annoyed. The adult alligator lizards we see don't mind that a bit ... honest!