A Gecko in Oklahoma.....?

Tonight we decided to go out for Ice Cream and before we got in the car my wife noticed a gecko on our front porch. I know Herps a little, I was actually amazed by them my entire youth and had quite a collection in my bedroom. I think I had a total of seventeen reptiles at one point. Needless to say no else dared to enter my room! That said, I was never previously aware of any Geckos in Oklahoma. After a little searching I finally found a website that had decent photos of the few Geckos that can be found in our region. You know me, I was hoping for some strange southwestern gecko, one that hadn't been reported before in Comanche County, or maybe even Oklahoma. Alas, my notions of grandeur were tossed aside when I located the photo of the non-native Mediterranean Gecko. Sure enough that's what we had found. More on it tomorrow.......

Success at the Feeder

About a week ago my daughter and I got to work on getting our long last hummingbird feeders hung. We moved into a new house over a year ago, and the final boxes are finally empty! Of course the feeders were in one of those boxes. No matter, this was a great chance for me to do something fun with Walden. She has always been just a little too small to actually mix the sugar solution, just for fear of getting hummingbird food all over the place. Well, she had a great time of mixing (and tasting) the food this time and made the process more fun than it has ever been for me! Unfortunately it was nearly dark before we got the feeder hung so there were no birds that day. I spent the following day at school, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Walden had spotted the first hummingbird at the "new" feeder, while I was gone. It couldn't have worked out any better, makes a father proud! She described it for me with all the excitement you could imagine, and then we watched the feeder together for a while and I finally got a glimpse of one as well. Needless to say we have at least three hummingbirds (all Black-chinned) coming to the feeder every day now.........till the next time!