Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Toad Motel


When we bought this place we found that there was a deep plastic 'pond' with water in it, surrounded by these flat stones. It was pretty much hidden by the bushes and ivy planted around it. Upon investigating we saw that the water held a bunch of small toads/frogs, whatever. So we named it the Toad Motel. These are different amphibians than the ones in the big pond, which have green heads and brownish bodies. These guys are all mud colored and never really roam very far from this pool.
This Spring after the ice melted, and things were greening up, I took another look under the bushes and found that there were great big frog bodies, belly up and stinking, and so I quickly left the area. Eeeoouuww.
Yesterday Dave cut back the foliage and brought a little sunshine to the Motel. I noticed we have a full house of happy basking critters. Eight to be exact. Click to see them better.

I am so happy to have them in view again.

This was shot after I tried to get closer, losing one of them to the water...

8 comments:

  1. Your frogs are cute!

    Kristin F. in SC

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  2. So, the cold killed them? Is that the usual thing with frogs/toads? I guess if a snake hibernates maybe a toad would too. Hmm...I have one little frog and a toad in my pond. I hope I won't have to fish them out of the filter this winter! ick

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  3. No Mandi, I found out that Dave drained the pond last fall and it was empty of water when the frogs would have been in there, hibernating. So methinks we will not do that again. Nothing happened to the rest of them, obviously, since we still have a full house. Perhaps they were old and ready to die anyway? Quien sabe.

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  4. Toads or frogs? Frogs.
    http://www.naturehaven.com/Frog/toad.html

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  5. We had the same thing on the property where I grew up. I looked forward to seeing them pop up every spring. They're so ugly they're cute.
    Glad you're having fun!

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  6. My grandson just 'learned' about frogs this past week. He thought the frog had thrown up a worm on him..turned out he squeezed it too hard! UGH...needless to say, he now has a better respect for little frogs! Lesson learned!

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  7. Those little frogs are adorable!

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  8. Those little frogs are adorable!

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