Pregnant again - Will it never end!

This is a common garden skink (Lampropholis guichenoti) - we have literally thousands in our garden. Because we never spray and encourage wild life diversity, they are able to breed freely. They are great garden friends and eat most of the horrible critters we get in these parts, such as crickets, moths, slaters, flies, grubs and caterpillars, grasshoppers, cockroaches, earwigs, slugs, small spiders, ants and many other small insects.

This one is a female, and she is showing her breeding colours of russet head and tail. I did take much better shots showing the colouration, but this one is definitely my favourite. As always the camera is hand held, at 1/20 sec. Within that time frame she obviously moved and then stayed still - hence the double image.

Skinks are egg laying reptiles, and you can see the bulge in her tummy. I reckon she's close to laying, and she's got at least 4 eggs on board, but possibly 6.

She was closely accompanied by her mate (who is a bit smaller and not so pretty), although he didn't do very much to protect her when we were there - he just scuttled for safety and left her to deal with me. Luckily she couldn't move quite as quickly, and I was really pleased to get these shots.

I apologise for the grubby floor, but this is taken inside our rather gloomy shed, in which we house the bench press. I don't go in there very often!!