The Anole in the Hole

Greetings, anole lovers! I wanted to share some recent observations from my Miami backyard. I’ve got a male Anolis cristatellus who’s made his home in an abandoned woodpecker cavity.

A Red-bellied Woodpecker excavating a nest cavity in a royal palm tree.

He started using the cavity a few months ago, but the story begins earlier than that. This spring, a pair of red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus) excavated two cavities in a dead royal palm tree in my yard. When the upper cavity (~4-5m above the ground) attracted the interest of a pair of red-masked parakeets (Psittacara [formerly Aratinga] erythrogenys), the woodpeckers shifted their attention to the lower cavity (~2.5m above the ground).

A Red-masked Parakeet at the entrance of a red-bellied woodpecker nest cavity.

Ultimately the parakeets moved into the upper cavity and it became clear to me that two cavities were actually connected inside the tree, because a parakeet would occasionally enter the upper cavity (which the parakeets had enlarged enough to enter) and, seconds later, peek its head out of the lower cavity (which was too small for the parakeets to enter or exit). The woodpeckers abandoned the site shortly after the parakeets took interest in it, and despite my hopes that *someone* might nest successfully in the cavity, a few weeks later the parakeets abandoned it too.

A gray squirrel peeking out of an abandoned woodpecker cavity.

In the late summer / early fall, well after the birds abandoned the cavities, I began seeing a male A. cristatellus around the lower cavity and I wondered if he spent any time inside. The first time I saw him actually emerge from inside the cavity was after a heavy afternoon rain. Subsequently, I saw him close to the cavity entrance at dawn and dusk several times, and I saw him emerge from the cavity early in the morning on at least one occasion. He seems to enter and exit the cavity throughout the day (he can frequently be seen hanging out near the cavity, even during fair weather), but I get the sense that he’s mostly using it as a shelter during the night and during storms.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve also seen a gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) spending time in the same cavity, but surprisingly this hasn’t deterred the anole, who still frequents the cavity as well. Earlier in the fall (during the period when the anole was also using the cavity), I also observed a gecko (Hemidactylus sp.) emerge from the cavity at dusk one night… so the hole is definitely a busy spot, even after being abandoned by its original makers!

I haven’t heard of anoles using nest holes in trees as shelters or night roosts. That being said, whenever I’ve looked for anoles at night, I’ve always looked for more exposed sleeping sites. Have others observed anoles using tree holes for sleeping or for daytime shelters?