This is a celebration of a life and an acknowledgement of shame and dismay. It's early in the morning and I can't sleep, so I've decided to write down the thoughts that are keeping me awake. I need to tell the tale of 3 Leg, the precious matriarch of our garden.
I have always, since I was conscious, been a 'herptophile' - don't know why, but I have a special affinity for reptiles and amphibians (for my brother, it's birds, for which he's had a virtually unparalleled lifelong passion). They're mostly little, mostly unassuming creatures who make our world far richer. Growing up in the US' east coast, we never had a dog, but we'd rescue delightful box turtles when we saw them on the road in danger of being smushed (sometimes taking our lives in our hands to snatch them up as an oncoming tractor trailer was bearing down!) and take them home for a few week to fatten them up on worms before releasing them in (what we hoped were un-mown!) meadows near where we'd found them. My childhood car rides were spent looking at the side of the road in hopes of seeing a vulnerable herp just in the nick of time - which happened occasionally - and feeling devastated each of the countless times I saw a turtle or snake or frog or other herp we'd failed to reach in time.
Now I live in Aotearoa (New Zealand) where there's a much smaller range of potential herps - there are no turtles, snakes, or salamanders here whatsoever. Where we built the house on the east coast of the South Island, we're in range of only a few herps... a couple of introduced frogs (Tasmanian Whistling frog, and Southern Bell frog), possibly a couple species of native gecko (mostly active at night), and the humble native grass skink - a subtly gorgeous lizard sporting stripes of metallic bronze, silver, and charcoal hues.
The very observant walker (without earbuds) in our local parks on sunny mornings might hear the telltale little shuffle or twitch in the tussock grasses lining many of our paths as these wee lizards pull out of the scant patch of sunlight they've been warming themselves in. Occasionally, such a person might even be rewarded with a brief glimpse, usually in their peripheral vision, or one ducking for cover. They're understandably skittish because they're a favourite prey of native birds, like the kōtare (kingfisher) and introduced predators like cats, rats, mice, hedgehogs, stoats, possums, blackbirds, and magpies.
We moved into our new house nearly 6 years ago. During the build process, I cringed as the grass of the yard was cleared by a digger to level it all out, wondering about all the creatures living in it that might silently be terminated by the digger's relentless power. Amazingly, I was there on the day the front yard was being levelled, and the digger operator and I were both stunned when, across the recently spread soil, devoid of grass, we both spotted the frantic motion of a skink, running for its life from the horrible commotion.
The digger driver stopped and I gently scooped up the skink and returned it to the long grass right along the fence line that would be safe from the digger's blade. He said 'I had no idea we had lizards like that around here - I've never seen one!' And at that moment, I resolved to make our yard a sanctuary for the life our house build had displaced, especially the skinks.
Shortly after moving in, I put down a left over sheet of corrugated steel roofing 'iron' (as it's called here), 2.4 x .6 metres, so that one edge was along the fence line at the back of our section near the laundry line, just beyond the back deck. Its edge was right up against the top of the timber retaining wall the fence was built above. A few soil drop-outs on our side of the retaining wall offered easy retreat, under the roofing 'iron', for skinks and other vulnerable critters. In the front yard, I created a 'lizardarium' using old dark clay roofing tiles I'd been given, laid out in a staggered arrangement up against a pile of dirt. This created terraces on which skinks could sun themselves and I planted a few tussock and other grasses grew up around it to provide further shelter. Mindful of the passage of the sun, to provide sheltered 'warming' positions across the yard, I also laid out other scraps of plywood and an abandoned metal sign that, during our build, had advertised the house's designer.
I'd built it, but the question was, would the skinks come? We were given one skink by a friend, whose cat had brought it into their house, tail-less and near death, which we released there. Every few days, I would go around various shelters and see if 'anyone was home'. For quite a while, I didn't see any skinks, but eventually, one day, as I came out to hang the laundry and decided to look under the roofing iron, which the sun was heating, I spotted movement. I caught a brief glimpse of a sizeable skink (maybe 10-12 cm long) as it ducked into the holes by the retaining wall to make its escape! I was overjoyed, and spent the day quietly buzzing.
The next day I looked again, and saw it again, although this time it paused briefly and turned its head to the side an looked up at me. I noticed that its left front leg was a tiny stump, but that didn't seem to hold it back much as it then dashed to the safety of the hole. Over the coming weeks, I noticed that 3 Leg was getting a bit broader - I gathered it was a she, as she appeared 'gravid' (carrying eggs internally, which hatch internally and are born live) - and eventually, later in the summer, I noticed a few very tiny skinks - her brood - zooming about when I lifted iron, and when I saw 3 Leg, she was noticeably slimmer.
As it got into autumn, I saw other skinks around the yard, and even, if I remember right, saw one or two availing themselves of the clay tiles on cool but sunny mornings... and then, as the frosts started, I didn't see any more skinks... until the early spring, when, on a warm sunny morning, I saw 3 Leg again under the iron, and the cycle began again! Another year and another brood for the quiet matriarch of our garden.
To me, along with the daffodils and kowhai flowers, the first sighting of 3 Leg has been the herald of spring in our garden. A few weeks ago, in the first week of September (considered the start of spring here in Aotearoa NZ), after checking every so often prior as I was putting out the laundry, I got my first glimpse of her. She wasn't looking great. She'd obviously had a rough winter, having lost most of her tail and appeared to have a scar on her side, perhaps from being mauls by a bird or cat... She moved slowly, although that might've also been the relative cool temperatures (which affect cold blooded reptiles, which is why they seek out protected warm places to get their metabolisms running). I was so thrilled to see her, that I posted about it - the joy of spring - on my Mastodon account. It received a lot of warm response from others. I went back out later, and found her again, taking a quick picture this time to show people what the fuss was about.
Over the last couple weeks, I saw her a few more times. Each time I pulled up the iron, it was like a brief snapshot in the 'life of a skink'. I'm quite sure 3 Leg realised I didn't mean her any harm, and she tend to saunter into shelter rather than dashing in a blur like the half dozen or so skinks now frequenting the front yard boards and lizardarium. One time, she was in the midst of eating a wee slug. Another time, she was clearly eyeing up a worm that was on the surface... and on Saturday, when I checked, I saw her again, near the front edge (I always lift the back edge to avoid cutting off the skinks' escape route down the holes) close to my feet on the other side of the iron. I laid it gently back down, chiding myself for not waiting for her to scarper off before putting it down (lest she unluckily be positioned under one of the corrugations that touched the soil, but confident that she was savvy enough to find space. I went back to hanging out my laundry.
On Sunday morning it was beautiful and sunny. I went out to check on 3 Leg. I flipped up the iron, eyes attuned to the sudden movement that would signal life... but nothing drew my eye. And then, I had brief moment of joy as I saw her, partly on a little chip of wood, near where I'd seen her last... which turned instantly to horror, as I saw she wasn't moving. And I saw a trail of tiny ants near her... she was dead, having been crushed between a corrugation and the bit of wood. My dear dear friend, blameless and stalwart... and through my cavalier inattentiveness... through my selfish need to be affirmed by confirming her presence... I'd ended her. I was (and am) bereft.
I needed to write this to honour her, 3 Leg, the noble matriarch of our garden. She was a dear soul who did the best that she could. And hope that others pay special attention to the precious things, no matter their size, in their spheres of existence.
Whoa, on the eve of writing this, this article (also referenced above) miraculously appeared...