What the cat dragged in?

Looks like a smooth newt, recently moulting, as to care, not sure, RSPCA?

Probably best to take back to the wild, they regrow limbs and tail after a few months

It’s a small lizard. They can drop their tails to evade predators. Just return it to somewhere secluded outside and it will be fine. The tail will regrow, though it won’t be as good as the original. Contrary to what Gazza says above, lizards cannot regrow limbs, just tails. Some amphibians can regrow limbs, but lizards are reptiles, which cannot. 

But of goggling and we identified it as a common lizard (Viviparous Lizard). Hadn't realised that we had such things up here in Norn Irn. It's sunbathing in a box on the windowsill and after lunch we'll walk across the fields and find a suitable spot to release it.

Willy.

Yes HH is correct on a better look at the picture it’s a lizard, and a lucky one at that

Hungryhalibut posted:

It’s a small lizard. They can drop their tails to evade predators. Just return it to somewhere secluded outside and it will be fine. The tail will regrow, though it won’t be as good as the original. Contrary to what Gazza says above, lizards cannot regrow limbs, just tails. Some amphibians can regrow limbs, but lizards are reptiles, which cannot. 

You never stop amazing me. 

(As a human, I can add – on a still experimental basis – that we can occasionally regrow, with a huge effort, brains).

Take care,

Max

Max_B posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

It’s a small lizard. They can drop their tails to evade predators. Just return it to somewhere secluded outside and it will be fine. The tail will regrow, though it won’t be as good as the original. Contrary to what Gazza says above, lizards cannot regrow limbs, just tails. Some amphibians can regrow limbs, but lizards are reptiles, which cannot. 

You never stop amazing me. 

(As a human, I can add – on a still experimental basis – that we can occasionally regrow, with a huge effort, brains).

Take care,

Max

 

One can only wonder how more intelligent humans would be if both sexes shared a common Cloaca.

A few years ago...

We owned a large cat, big enough that we had to fit a dog flap for her.

One day, when the wife and girls were away in Brum I came home from work, cooked dinner and sat at my computer (tucked in a sort of alcove, surrounded by CD shelving) all evening, listening to music with the lights dimmed.

Around 11 p.m. I decided to crawl into bed, so shut the music off...and it was then I hear a shuffling, scratchy sound above and behind me. Mice, or something in the ceiling? No...it seemed nearer.

I stood up and looked behind me at the top of the shelving, and there looking at me was a magpie, presumably brought in by the cat who’d lost interest/decided to feign ignorance. A number of things happened:

- you realise what a big bird a magpie is when you are two feet from it at head level 

- you clock the size of its beak

- you re-enact a scene from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, staring eyeball to eyeball with something giving off an aura of implacable menace, while you think “What the f*ck do I do now?”

In the end, it was surprisingly and thankfully easy. Having told it to stay put (it had clearly been there all evening and more) I fetched a pair of gardening gloves, opened a window and made encouraging shooing noises at it whilst gesturing vividly at the open window. The dear thing squawked and flapped off into the night. I sat down and quaked quietly.

She was a big girl. Live pigeons, squirrels (admittedly a bit groggy) and a second magpie (this one less scarey - found it in an upstairs bedroom, having spent the day pooing everywhere in a panic to get out). The key, I think was the dog flap.

Nick Lees posted:

She was a big girl. Live pigeons, squirrels (admittedly a bit groggy) and a second magpie (this one less scarey - found it in an upstairs bedroom, having spent the day pooing everywhere in a panic to get out). The key, I think was the dog flap.

We get the occasional wood pigeon dropping down our chimneys. In the winter months they love to sit on the chimney pots for the warmth and must fall asleep and then drop down. Naturally once they hit the fireplace in the lounge or dining room all hell breaks loose and it often  takes a day or two to clear up! As of now no pigeons or people have been physically damaged however mentally shocked and scarred inmates here and the drop-in birds is another matter entirely...