GOT LIZARDS?

I was surprised the other day in the garden by this guy...the Northwestern Alligator Lizard (Elgaria coerulea)! He was at least 10" long and very fat...maybe it was a female about to deliver (the young are delivered alive about this time of year) now that I think about it. I knew we had a lizard...last year I saw it sunning on a rock in the perennial bed but it was half the size of this one. 
I actually like lizards and used to have a pet one when I was a kid until I left it out in the yard and it disappeared. Well, it was hard to take a lizard for a walk and I did have to catch bugs for it...euwww!
As a gardener, I love lizard 'cause they eat lots and lots of bugs, slugs, etc. Of course I bet this one has been getting lots of worms that fall out of my mulch bin as well. So here's hoping for more lizards in the future to snap up all the increasing supply of crunchy bugs that will surely appear this summer. Izzie hopes for more lizards too and camps out near the perennial bed watching and waiting...I doubt that she'll tackle this big one though she might get a twitching tail in her mouth...yuck!