So I had a couple of hours to kill while the Big Guy was having his rotator cuff surgery yesterday. As I was walking along this sidewalk, heading for our car in the parking lot of the surgery center, I thought I saw something moving. I glanced down just as it vanished! But what the heck was that? It didn’t look like a snake, and it was too big for a worm. I checked out the holes in the the sidewalk cap but couldn’t see anything, so I shrugged and moved on.

Barely visible in the hole on the left

The next time I passed by, my timing was a little better — I spotted him before he completely disappeared back into the hole, and I realized what I had spotted earlier was the end of his tail as he dove for cover. But I had to sit down and wait for several minutes before he very cautiously showed the tip of his nose again.

Luckily there wasn’t any traffic on the walkway; I was able to creep a little closer, very slowly. It was also lucky because I had only the camera on my smart phone. I’m actually a bit surprised these images came out looking as good as they do. Later I was able to identify him as a male Northern brown skink. It just goes to show that you should always have some type of camera with you — you just never know what might pop up.

Oops! I got a little too close and he flinched back down into his hidey hole

But curiosity got the better of him, and he popped back up for one last look