monitoring a lizard

As a result of the construction work that started last year as part of the Fanling North New Development Area, we don’t walk down our local river (Ng Tung River) as often as we used to, but we did yesterday. It used to be straightforward to follow the Drainage Services access road, but most of this is now blocked. However, there is a path that runs parallel to the access road through the village of Shek Wu Shan.

I had originally characterized this village as just a row of squatter houses, because there are no modern village houses here. However, when we visited the Story House in Fu Tei Au (further downstream) last December, I learned that the 1972 New House Policy applied only to indigenous villages, ones that could trace their history to a date prior to the signing of the lease for the New Territories in 1898.

We were walking along this path when I spotted a monitor lizard on a tile-covered bench by the side:

This is an enlarged version of the relevant section of the photo:

I then took two photos from the right:

Notice that the lizard appears much lighter in the second photo. I attribute this to taking that photo from a lower angle, which reduced the effect of the light background, which caused the lizard to be underexposed in the first photo.

Paula also took three photos:

Her second photo is the only one that shows the row of spikes along the lizard’s back. These are purely decorative, but notice its hooked claws. I’ll wager that it’s good at climbing trees. I estimate that this creature is about 25cm long, around two-thirds of which is its tail. I was surprised that it didn’t scuttle off when we tried to get closer, but it was completely unruffled. Perhaps it just liked having its photo taken.