The Island of Portland is famous for its lighthouse at Portland Bill. Less well known is that the island supports two colonies of the introduced Common wall lizard. The quarry at Cheyne Weare car poark located at the south east of the island is jam-packed full of the brown-backed form, and we were fortunate to witness territorial displays between males.
Moving further along the coast towards Bournemouth, we stopped off at Boscombe, near the Portman Ravine. This area also supports wall lizards (green-backed form), but also the largr Green lizard, the only UK site where this animal is known to breed in the wild.
Green lizards are much larger than our native common lizards as can be seen in the following comparison picture:
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