wildlife

It really is like the Discovery channel here at our house this year! Today I thought I saw a spot of dirt in the pool. When my Dad checked it out closer, we realized that the clump of black was a slimy mass of frog eggs. So THAT’s what those frogs have been doing in my pool late at night!!! I watched three of them jump in there last night when I let the dogs out for the last time. Not wanting tadpoles in the pool, and sure they wouldn’t survive there, Dad fished (no pun intended!) the eggs out very gently and I put them in a bucket with mostly fresh water, trying not to disturb them. We’re going to share most of them with Kallie’s kindergarten class and our neighbor who’s 5 and in love with frogs. We hope they will turn into tadpoles and beautiful Rio Grande Leopard frogs and live happily ever after! Any advice on tadpole development will be greatly appreciated!

Here are some of the things that were happy in my gardens this weekend. Notice the new lantana TREE that I pruned up growing uninvited in my veggie garden!

Blue Daze
Zinnias
Frangipani or Plumeria
Lantana tree in the veggie garden.

So I keep fishing this beautiful frog out of out pool — though he is perfectly capable of getting out on his own — sometimes I just worry anyway when I see him swimming around and I get the net and put him safely back into the bushes. Tonight I went online and surfed through some frog and toad sites and found the most interesting information.

I found a great website with photos and soundtracks of our native frogs and toads, which actually have no scientific differences. It’s at: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us

Unfortunately, I’ve spent 20 minutes trying to get this really long link online here for you and it keeps messing up and won’t wrap the text in my post without losing letters. So, you’ll have to search in the Texas Parks and Wildlife website — so sorry…. but it’s well worth it!!!

I’ll probably still refer to the dumpy brown ones as toads and the shiny green ones as frogs!

While moving some plants on the edge of the driveway yesterday, I discovered Mr. Camo-Toad, hiding against the rocks and under the wet foliage. He was HUGE and I just kept walking outside to peer at him, in awe of his size and color. He perfectly matched the mossy green and cream that the rock edging has taken on with all the rain, and he was about the size of a saucer! He’s moved on today, but we ooohed and ahhhed over him for quite some time — even my 4-year old daughter was checking him out.

We’ve been blessed this year — three families of birds have chosen our porches to build their nests. The first, Carolina Wrens, had 3 babies in a pot on our back table. I moved it safely away from dogs and up against the window and it was like National Geographic on our back patio. I actually got watch them leave the nest – hopping tentatively and teetering around for about an hour before they finally flew off. After watching all of the nest building and fledgling activity for weeks, I truly understood the term, “empty nest!” Then the cliff swallows came to our front porch (where they pooped an unbelievable amount! We watched those 3 babies leave, and they actually all came back and forth and used the nest with their parents for several weeks. Now, we have our second set of swallow fledglings in the nest – 4, I think. They are close to taking the big plunge. In spite of our porch becoming a bathroom, we have all enjoyed watching nature up close and personal. Part of the joy of gardening is building habitat for the creatures with which we share this planet.