I regularly see small skinks basking on the edge of walking paths when I’m out and about. I’ve tried many times to get pictures of them, but most of the time they end up scampering into the tangle of vegetation before I can get a photo. Any tips for getting pics of these fast little buggers? I’d lik…

I’ve rarely photo’d a skink that wasn’t dead or in hand. They’re just too wary and too good at using cover when they flee. Best I can recommend is you keep a good distance and watch as one forages. If it isn’t too alarmed it just might pose for a second. If you know where one hides you could stak…

I wonder if you use a phone camera. You could try a selfie stick and the timer.

I use a telephoto lens for most of the skink photos I take . Generally, keeping your distance, watching their body language, and not making any sudden moves is the key. I’ve gotten good ones even with a smartphone though, but that generally involves moving slowly and being a bit lucky.

Remember that cropping can make a picture look like more of a close-up than it really is. I photographed this Azure-tailed Skink while it was down in the grass and I was standing at my full height. It ran off a second later, so I was unable to get close, but by viewing the picture at full size on Pa…

@fubberpish I have made 46 observations of Ablepharus kitaibelii (European Copper Skink) and I hide behind bushes or leaves and stay at an angle where I can see the skink but it can’t see me. This has worked very well for me. But I am also very good at catching lizards using my hands and I often cat…

not sure what kind of skinks you’re dealing with, but the skinks in my area seem to tend to stay in a relatively small area, meaning that even if they scamper away, if you wait long enough at a safe distance (maybe 2-3 meters away), they’ll often come back out, and then you can take a photo with you…

Thanks for your tips everyone!!

Ah, the skink. Truly one of the Ontario (Canada) naturalists’ dream observations. Only one specimen observed (just last year), and not that far from me. It’s this province’s only native lizard species (the five-lined) and as you’ve probably guessed, endangered. This might explain why, when Canadia…

[image] fubberpish: I’d like to avoid handling them or otherwise disturbing them as much as possible. Is that mostly to avoid triggering the tail-drop defense? Which, I presume, is a significant enough sacrifice to the animal to weaken its survival odds. In the case of the species we have lo…

Mostly I just want to limit unnecessary stress to the skink. The tail-drop is not something I had considered, but now that you bring it up, that is a concern too.

How to snap (photograph) skinks?

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How to snap (photograph) skinks?

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