Skink, Skink, Severus Skink

We all love this video highlighting Snape, Snape, Severus Snape. And I couldn’t help but have the ticky, tocky song running through my head the week before we left for the Midwest. We had four skinks in the house over the course of a couple days, and we finally figured out how they were getting in…the fireplace.

It all began with the big and little skinks. Actually, it all began right after we moved into the house and we had two skinks within a short amount of time after having lived in houses with no skinks for the last twenty years. We thought it was an odd coincidence.

Then, two weeks ago, I saw a small skink skitter across the floor by the french doors, obviously looking for an exit. Nutmeg hadn’t yet spotted him, so I tried to get ahead of him to open an exit door, but only managed to scare him under the dishwasher.

After Buds got home that night, there was a rustling sound by the fireplace.

“Oh,” I said, “It’s the skink. Can you help me get rid of it?”

By help, I meant, “Could you get rid of it?”

Buds is no great lover of small, skittery things either, but he got a box, I got a broom, and we prepared to do battle, in a loving, friendly, UU way.

Then I saw the size of the skink and realized, this was not the little skink I had seen earlier. This was another, significantly larger skink. It was clinging to the wall of the fireplace, and we expected to scoop it up when it attempted to exit out the front.

It didn’t exit out the front, it went back up the fireplace.

Then it all became clear:

The skink we found under the coffee table when we got home from Ireland.
The skinks that were found in the bathroom and a bedroom.
Two skinks in one day…

We managed to save a recent one and deposit it outdoors. I hope it stayed out there.

They apparently had some sort of Skink Hell’s Angels’ Club where you had to go down our fireplace and survive to be initiated in.

The next morning we found the smaller skink dead with a few puncture wounds. I saw the tail first, then saw the small object I had assumed to be one of our rubber lizard toys. (In reading this blog post, Monkey is just now learning that she pushed a dead skink off the couch with several other toys…SURPRISE!)

Did you know skinks ditch their tales when petrified, or preparing for battle, or preparing to die? Whichever.

No new skinks since we’ve returned home. Buds had one or two while we were away.

I like skinks. I just wish they would choose a different death wish.