ON a Dorset cliff top I've spent some time watching a large population of common lizards. Fascinating creatures they are too, patterned in dull brownish-green with a dark stripe down the back and pale lines along the sides (see photograph).

They are very furtive and I may be watching a spot on a stone slab where I know a lizard often basks in the sun but there is no lizard there. However, looking away for a couple of seconds I look back and there is a lizard seemingly appearing out of nowhere!

They stay for long periods basking, rarely moving except for an occasional turn of the head. Sometimes a small fly may alight close by causing the lizard to lunge forward but I never saw one caught. They live on a diet of spiders ants and small insects.They are very agile and adept at scaling vertical stone walls.

If I make an awkward movement they quickly scuttle into nearby vegetation. They have few enemies apart from rats, hedgehogs and especially kestrels stooping from above but if pounced on they shed their tails which continue to twitch to fool predators and make their escape. They re-grow tails but never attain the length of the old ones.

We have two lizards, namely the common and sand plus the slowworm which looks like a small snake but is neither worm nor snake but a legless lizard.

Common lizards don't lay eggs as does the sand lizard but instead give birth to brood of up to eight or ten fully formed tiny young. Common lizards may live for up to seven years.