Daring Aquatic Rescue

At approximately 4:10PM this Sunday, my wife informed me that there was someone in distress.  Being a man of action, I immediately went into to rescue mode, complete with a cheesy 80's TV-show soundtrack playing in the background.  My mission - attempt a daring rescue of a skink that was trapped in our pool.

 This operation was going to be both dangerous and difficult. It also required me to channel years of childhood experience playing with cold-blooded beasties in the bayous and estuaries of coastal Alabama to become a cool, fearless reptile rescue machine.

This next part may be too much for those of you with delicate constitutions - using nothing but my hand I lifted the trapped skink out of the pool.

 It was a blue tailed skink, which is native to Maryland and as you can see does, indeed, have a blue tail.  They are actually very beautiful.  They are also vociferous mosquito eating machines and make good neighbors.

This particular skink was quite friendly and insisted on crawling up arm and resting on my shoulder for about 20 minutes before agreeing that it was time for him to return to the pool side wisteria vine.

I love it when a plan comes together.