Id this Lizard

fryup wrote: »

only to be found in coastal areas i take it?

Not at all. I see them quite often when hillwalking all over Ireland. Saw two in the Slieve Blooms a couple of weeks ago in fact.

Talking about lizards, I saw the strangest thing a few weeks ago on a hike in the boggy area where the sources of the Liffey, Avonmore and Dargle are located. We startled a lizard who then scurried towards one of the many small ponds, and promptly swam across it! I never knew lizards could swim.

recedite wrote: »

They have always been fairly common, but only in the right place, and at the right time.
You'll typically see them after disturbing them on a sunny day in summer, while they are basking on a rock. Mostly on mountain or sea cliff habitat.
You'd think coasts and mountains are very different habitats, and so they are. I suspect they need somewhere dry for their winter hibernation, somewhere that will never flood, and that is the main reason they frequent rocky and/or upland areas.

I know the typical habitats but had never actually seen one in Ireland before, at least in the wild. Just was strange that it is was in a friend’s garden. It was relatively rural but on the edge of the suburbs too. Just seem to be more common in locations I wouldn’t ordinarily have expected. OP’s one in Galway city garden. Then there was one wrapped up in the web of a false widow spider in Dalkey or Killiney a while back. ...That says more about the progress of that particular spider in Ireland rather than the common lizard.

Any I've ever seen have been along the edge of trails through the bog.

recedite wrote: »

ie "uplands"

Not necessarily, I've seen them in sand dunes beside the sea and there are plenty of reports of 'sightings' from Clara Bog.....

Birdie Num Num wrote:

I know the typical habitats but had never actually seen one in Ireland before, at least in the wild. Just was strange that it is was in a friend’s garden. It was relatively rural but on the edge of the suburbs too. Just seem to be more common in locations I wouldn’t ordinarily have expected. OP’s one in Galway city garden. Then there was one wrapped up in the web of a false widow spider in Dalkey or Killiney a while back. ...That says more about the progress of that particular spider in Ireland rather than the common lizard.

Roberts head ( above Roberts cove) Cork ,fair chance of seeing one on the cliff walk on a rock getting the sun( twice in as many weeks)

recedite wrote: »

But are they in a raised or rocky area above the bog, or are they actually in the low lying area?

The only time I actually saw a lizard wild in Ireland was in my uncles small private area of bogland in Cavan about 40 years ago. My uncle was an oldish guy at that point but still insisted on cutting a small amount of black turf by hand out of his bog every summer. I saw the small lizard basking on a pile of turf he had cut and stacked in the bog to dry. It was a fairly wild piece of bogland mostly covered in willows and briars and old bogholes covered in long grass so I don't know where the lizards normally basked. I have never encountered lizards anywhere else despite doing a fair bit of walking in different parts of Ireland (although not looking for them I might add).

Actually I have always thought that some of these small private areas of bog that you get pretty much everywhere in Ireland could still be holding a few secrets in terms of undiscovered species of plants or insects. Many of these areas although they can sometimes be 20 or 30 acres in size are quite isolated from each other and at the same time must be some of the most undisturbed or unexplored habitats in Ireland. I don't mean the big commercial bogs or upland bogs. I mean the small bits of bog here and there in the middle of good farmland in the midlands which are often overgrown by vegetation and surrounded by big drains of water and which can be treacherous with old bogholes, so have been left pretty much untouched by machinery or even by people walking through.

Here's one I found a few years back up in the general area of Black Hill / Mullaghcleevaun. Not a hot day by any means, and certainly not dry either ...

you can send your sighting to the Irish Wildlife Trust who are surveying reptile locations:
https://iwt.ie/what-we-do/citizen-science/national-reptile-survey/

the map on that page suggests they're fairly widespread - I've seen them in Greystones (not for a few years though).