{"id":25301,"date":"2026-08-03T13:53:52","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T18:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=25301"},"modified":"2026-11-05T10:03:35","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T15:03:35","slug":"blue-tailed-skink-plestiodon-fasciatus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=25301","title":{"rendered":"Blue-tailed Skink (<em>Plestiodon fasciatus<\/em>)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_25303\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25303\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206-350x233.jpg\" alt=\"Blue-tailed Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus)\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/img_20260803_032206.jpg 1800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25303\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue-tailed Skink (<em>Plestiodon fasciatus<\/em>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Cathy and I went to Great Falls today. It was nice out but quite hot. Being a week day, there were quite a few less people than we often see there. I didn&#8217;t take a lot of pictures and we didn&#8217;t see many birds at all, except for the occasional black or turkey vulture soaring far overhead. As we walked back from the Olmsted Island overlook we saw this blue-tailed skink (<em>Plestiodon fasciatus<\/em>), also known as the common five-lined skink, although I prefer the more colorful name (if you&#8217;ll pardon the pun). They are quite pretty and while common, they are also quite skittish, so it&#8217;s not always easy to get a photo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cathy and I went to Great Falls today. It was nice out but quite hot. Being a week day, there were quite a few less people than we often see there. I didn&#8217;t take a lot of pictures and we didn&#8217;t see many birds at all, except for the occasional black or turkey vulture soaring &hellip; <a class=\"read-excerpt\" href=\"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/?p=25301\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&raquo;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[3894,1791,3896,3895],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25304,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25301\/revisions\/25304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.henryhartley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}