baby toad! :) :) :)

[flowerbug]

i have seen so few the past few years so to see one this year is so great. i was out picking strawberries and there it was hopping along. *bounce bounce*

i sure hope it makes it to be an adult. live long and prosper little feller or fellerette! we have a lot of places for frogs and toads to hide out so it isn't a lack of places for them to be. but we also have a lot of snakes and other creatures which like to eat any amphibians they can catch...

it is another part of the problem that their breeding places are being drained and subjected to mosquito control poisons.

 

[so lucky]

A few days after a hard rain here, I found a tiny dried out newt (salamander?) on our back patio. It was only about one and a quarter inches long, including tail.
Sad, but it gives me hope that maybe the rest of that hatch is still around.
We do have one little tree frog catching bugs on the kitchen window at night, when the light above the sink attracts them.

 

[ducks4you]

We have TONS of toads. We get brown and green frogs, 10 minutes up the road, different town with lots of old, established trees, THEY have tree frogs.

 

[flowerbug]

We have TONS of toads. We get brown and green frogs, 10 minutes up the road, different town with lots of old, established trees, THEY have tree frogs.

we used to have tree frogs around the house and back in the trees. i'm not sure what has happened to them. once in a while we'd get frogs crawling on the windows for bugs on the rainy nights. i haven't seen any the past several years. i thought we'd made a comeback a few years ago because i'd finally gotten Mom to stop using some spray she was getting that kept the bugs from getting into the house (it didn't work). anyways, a few years after stopping using that spray i started finding tree frogs on and around the house again. none recently.

the other frogs we'd commonly see in the gardens and around the house are scarce too, but we can still here them in the ditches so they are still around. with all this crushed limestone mulch it isn't common to see them right up around the house anyways. only the tree frogs would get this far because they are excellent climbers.

 

[thistlebloom]

Where there's one baby toad there's bound to be more.

I was pulling weeds out of the firepit ring this morning and a little garter snake came up with a weed. I brought him in to show my husband and Kid#1, and he pee'd on me as a reward. The snake I mean.

Funny, we were just talking about not seeing any snakes yet this year.

 

[flowerbug]

Where there's one baby toad there's bound to be more.

I was pulling weeds out of the firepit ring this morning and a little garter snake came up with a weed. I brought him in to show my husband and Kid#1, and he pee'd on me as a reward. The snake I mean.

Funny, we were just talking about not seeing any snakes yet this year.

i think i saw another baby toad this morning, but it was only a glimpse and i didn't want to try to find it as it had ducked in under some thyme that had a lot of bees on it. i hope so!

we have a lot of snakes here with all these rocks and places for them to hide, plus all the mice and chipmunk burrows. it is very unusual for me to be out in the gardens during the summer and not see a snake. some of them are very fiesty. garters usually crawl away.

i don't usually handle them so i've never been anointed like that. you are blessed @thistlebloom!

 

[digitS']

My backyard is not a common environment for frogs. Only in the last few years, have I seen any. I'd like to imagine that my regular running of lawn and garden sprinklers over many years have created a better environment for them .

The Northern Leopard Frog has become a regular visitor but the numbers seem really limited. Maybe, they are territorial and each occupy several 1000 square feet.

I believe that they are back in 2019. Or, one is. For me to identify anything by sound is problematic. I need DW's help but it has been when I'm out at nightfall that I'm hearing a frog ... singular.

A few years ago, I was moving some of the large rocks that had been holding down the ends of the hoop house over its spring season. The plastic film had been removed, so it was just about now when I was finding new locations for these rocks - some must weigh as much as 50#. Daylight hours so the frogs weren't likely to be singing, even if this near-deaf guy would have noticed.

Not so carefully, I lifted one of these boulders and dropped it in its new location. The little frog sitting very nearby flinched so dramatically that I saw him! good goobily goop! I dropped all that weight within an inch or two of the little, camouflaged guy!! Other than flinching, he still didn't move. I had to be more careful.

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

We used to have toads in the yard. They loved to go a courtin' in the koi pond! Man can that get LOUD! But the dog harassed them and they no longer come around