THE CRASSULA AND THE LIZARD

Well- turns out ‘coming soon’ should have perhaps read ‘in a month’s time’. As usual this time of year has turned out to be very busy and somewhat lacking in internet access. I’ve been making my way through a travel itinerary that is taking me from the most northern reaches of Scotland to the shores of the Black Sea, and I haven’t been able to post here as often as I would have liked. Nevertheless, I’m back with my second set of photos from our little escape to the Sierra de Guadarrama in Madrid. Let’s head back to the mountains 🙂

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These photos were taken up at our village’s Ermita- the tiny church nestled into the foot of the mountains. Wildlife-wise, it’s always come up with the goods- this was where I saw my first ever praying mantis in Spain, and it’s always been reliable for enormous ant colonies to be seen scouting and fighting under a baking sun. Because it’s just that little bit out of the way of the normal walking loop, it’s also a great place for herping- it’s huge granite rocks providing plenty of places to bask, and plenty of places to disappear into if a quick exit is required. Rather than waffle on about how many good things there are at the Ermita, I’ve forced myself to pick out two highlights from this year’s trip- hence this post’s title, the crassula and the lizard (that’s right- one of them was a plant).

Let’s talk about the obvious one first- the gorgeous Psammodromus algirus. I’m afraid that the English common name for this lizard doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue (it’s known as the Large Psammodromus), but I prefer the Spanish vernacular name- lagartija colilarga, or long-tailed lizard. I think the photos do a good job explaining why (particularly the third one)- business up front, party at the back. They’re a relatively common sight among the rocks and tend to be laid back enough that they don’t mind me taking photographs of those extraordinary fiery red tails.

And the crassula? They may be known as stonecrops, but I don’t think I need to do much to convince you about their greatness- they’re cute as a button (each one only reached about 4cm high), totally badass (they can pretty much grow on bare rock) and 100% on trend (they’re a type of succulent, and the stems achieve a perfect shade of millennial-pink in the full sun). I think this is Sedum pedicellatum, which is an Iberian peninsula endemic- it may even be Sedum pedicellatum subsp. pedicellatum, which is endemic just to the Sierra de Guadarrama. An extra-special species for an extra-special place.