Who's the Top of the Food Chain? A.K.A. Cattle Egret Eating Gecko

Cattle Egret, Bubulcus ibis, holding on to a hapless gecko by the foot.  Losing his tail did this gecko no good.  Neither did blending in with the tree bark work to hide this little gecko from those sharp Egret eyes.  This particular egret had made a regular career out of hunting geckos and was going from tree to tree, methodically stalking around each tree looking for geckos.

Lizard Lovers Unite

One of my few readers (hahah, with me that makes two), was gracious enough to identify my blue spotted lizard from Torrey Pines as a Sceloporous or Fence Lizard (which I had mistakenly labeled as an aligator lizard, April 25, 2007). I, of course, was pretty doggone happy to have someone interested in my pictures and figured I'd put up another lizard from my extensive photo library for our lizard loving friends. Sorry, nothing rare. Best I can tell, it is a Gecko native to Madagascar, Phelsuma madagascariensis grandis, that has successfully gone native in Hawaii. My friends in Hawaii tell me that they have seen these guys gobbling up the other geckos and anoles in the area and that they are rapidly taking over [a word of caution to those of you who would randomly introduce new species into ecosystems]. This one was photographed at the City of Refuge on the Big Island of Hawaii in one of their huts.