Looks like a salamander or newt.

Looks like a salamander

Your location would help people home in on likely candidates.

It's clearly enjoying the nice woolly blanket you've thoughtfully provided.

Looks like one of the slender salamander species; they're found all over the place.

I agree with Lonejack that it looks like a skink and I have this in my garden too. My cat used to bring them to me as gift but after I colded and told her that skink is my garden friend she stopped doing that . My skinks are red at the belly area. They are beneficial I think.

Yes if you want to know for sure we need a location

I vote for skink.

I live in LA, CA I forgot to say. I've definitely seen adult skinks in the garden last year so that sounds like the best bet. It was very small and had such tiny legs so it didn't occur to me that it could be a child skink.

Oooh, I make Balnamoon SkinK for St Patrick's Day! I want some! Nancy

P.S. Actually Balnamoon skink is a chicken/leek soup and I do often make it for SPD!

Update: most def a slender salamander. I asked my friend who's a park ranger in the Santa Monica mountains and he immediately knew what it was. He was hunting for them a few days ago, but couldn't find any. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_slender_salamander

I figured you were in California as soon as I saw the pic. Turn over any big rock out there and you can find those around the damp cool underside. Careful with him, he's pretty fragile, but he's not gonna hurt anything.

I have a million skinks here and yours sort of looks like one, but not really. His eyes (or are they ears??) are too big; and his tail is too fat, especially in the bit that should be quite thin.

I went out to look at some skinks and they were looking back at me. Didn't trust me because I was trying to get close to see their eyes. But no, I think yours is not a skink.

Daughter thinks it's not a salamanda either.

It's a salamander. By slender salamander they don't mean any old salamander that's kind of thin; there is a group of salamanders literally called slender salamanders, and they look just like that. They're all over California and not much further range than that. They're so sedentary that our best guess is they accomplish all of their migration by riding the tectonic plates on their slow journeys; a home range of 4x4 feet is about right for them.

Even the baby skinks looks quite a bit different than this slender salamander.

Jon, thanks for that information regarding their range....I thought that they had a broader range.

I'm always thrilled when I find these guys in my garden. They're so freaky/cute.