Frogs

[MajorDan]

That is just hilarious

 

[addy1]

I hate to even walk around the pond once they start hopping around. They are so tiny!

I don't mow close to the pond so they are safe if they stay there, but they don't. You find them everywhere.

 

[Michael from Daytona]

It's the toads that make all the racket. Their pitch is such that it'll echo inside your head. A frog's "Ribbit" is like music by comparison.

You

I thought toads dont live in water?

Hey, Burd, they don't "live" in water but like their cousins, they must reproduce in water.

 

[Michael from Daytona]

Toads don't live in water, but they breed and lay ribbons of eggs in the water that entwine around plants, rocks, anything that they can get around. When the eggs mature and hatch they look very similar to frog tads. When they "grow up" they leave the pond until it's time for them to return for the annual symphony. Fortunately that only lasts two or three nights in our region.

Here's a pair laying egg ribbons. These are easily distinguished from frog eggs as the frogs are in jelly balls, or globs. (technical stuff here...)
View attachment 119652


This is a fresh hatch of toad eggs...
.View attachment 119651

Down here in Florida, this process takes about a week or two before they're finished. My two sluice-connected ponds are ovoid shaped, about 8-12 feet across and 2 feet deep, with two waterfalls. I've noticed less than a dozen toads making all the racket at night. The eggs develop over 5-6 days before hatching out. As others have reported, despite the thousands of tadpoles produced every spring, the adult toad population on the property remains fairly constant throughout the year.

I live in an older, urban neighborhood a city block from the Atlantic ocean on a half-acre lot surrounded by a 6' masonry wall. There is lush tropical landscaping with succulents, elephant ears, banana, bird of paradise, palms, corn plants, spider lilies and mature ficas, shefflara and japanese plum trees - but not much grass. The toads populate the plant beds but I rarely find more than a couple while maintaining the landscape.

There is a smattering of other critters that pass through - such as the occasional possum and raccoon - and a family of gray squirrels, a 36" black snake and dozens of tree frogs - that live on the property, but other than for the thousands of geckos that swarm over everything, the homestead does not function as anything like a wildlife refuge. Sea birds and marsh waders have chosen to pass overhead (so far) rather than to come down and check out the menu. My cat may have something to do with that, although he permits short visits from mourning doves and songbirds that like to bathe and frolic in the ten-foot long shallow brook-like sluice.

The photo shows the side courtyard and lower pond, with the upper pond (+12" elevation) in the background (total 1,200 gals). There are three young koi (<6 inches) and a comet in the upper pond and five koi (= or <6 inches) and five comets in the lower, along with a pleco and several Japanese rock snails for algae control in both ponds. Plants: Alisma plantago, hydrilla, water lettuce, lily pads. For some reason or other I've been having problems with string algae this year (possibly due to higher pH than usual) but with the addition of barley bales and an aggressive manual removal regimen, the algae is on the run.

 

[Timothy]

Beautiful garden area Micheal!
I lived in Florida (Cape Canaveral and Ft Lauderdale) in the early-middle 70's and enjoyed the plant life although ours was not structured, just enough to make it feel sub tropical. We had many delightful evenings sitting out back!

 

[Burd]

It finally warmed up here, I saw the big frog out already, it survived the pony totally freezing in the winter, crazy.

 

[JamieB]

Neither my cats nor my dogs mess with the common toads here. But turtles, well those moving rocks are tasty to the dogs, so must be rescued when I find them first. We had a big old snapper we had to save last year. Ended up dragging it on a leaf rake cause boy was he mad! My idiot dogs are getting fenced in ASAP. They’ve picked up some bad habits, like chasing cars.
As for toads, I’ve already seen last years big toad on the porch to catch bugs. I’ll have half a dozen softball sized toads by end of summer, all parked on the porch each night. I expect once my pond is done, I’ll have dozens more, and thousands of tadpoles. Technically, if I recall correctly, frogs have pollywogs.

 

[Burd]

I looked out the window one day, a crow was pecking something. I went out to see, it a a frog. It must have been like a pc of rubber to the Crow. He looked ok, So put him in the pond.

 

[Timothy]

I looked out the window one day, a crow was pecking something................................. He looked ok, So put him in the pond.

I want so bad to make a corny joke about the crow! ...........but I won't.

(Sorry Burd )