Froggy In The Window

My back door has a big window in it that I keep open so my dog can look out of whenever she wants. Usually I close it at night because the dog ignores it then. Tonight was different though. The dog kept barking and barking at something she thought was on the porch. She was furious.

I thought she was barking at a reflection of her water dish, so I walked over and cartoonishly scolded the water dish reflection for her. It seemed to make her really happy that I was on her side. She wasn't quite so frustrated after that, but she kept barking.

After I had ignored her for awhile, I looked over at the door because her barking had changed. She seemed a little alarmed. There in the middle of the glass was this frog. It could be a toad, but who cares? It was climbing around on the glass, and the dog wanted no part of it. But I did.

I grabbed my phone and took several pictures of the frog/toad. Most of them were too blurry because of the dark, but these two were kind of acceptable. I was so grateful to this little creature because I have no other sources for pictures right now because it just won't stop raining. Someday, one day I'll go outside again.

One more thing before I go. I wrote a new short fiction story over at my Rat Tales blog. It's called Davey And The Little Blue Bird. As I am of all of my stories, I'm proud of this new little bit of fast food for the mind. I haven't written a story in a long time until now.

This story is kind of a prequel to another story I wrote a few years ago. They both share a common character. You can find a link to that other one on the blog there. If you do decided to take a look, I hope you like it. The story is also linked to a series of stories I wrote. If you read them all, you might recognize a few characters.

But anyway, there's always my next post right here at The Everyday Adventurer. I'll have that just as soon as it stops raining or if I get another little critter at my window. Who knows what could happen? So I guess I'll talk to you later.

A Toad On My Porch

It's been awhile, but I'm back. And I brought a little friend with me! I found this big old fat toad on my porch a few nights ago. He was just sitting on the edge there relaxing. I happened to look down while I was letting the dog out on her chain, and I saw the fat toad sitting there.

I quickly shut the door and ran to get my camera. I have to tell you that he dog was highly disappointed that I didn't let her out quite yet. I was trying to protect this fat green morsel from her. She'll eat anything, even something she shouldn't, like this toad.

When I made it back outside with my camera, the toad was still waiting there for me. But you already figured that out, didn't you? I then took about a half dozen pictures before nudging the toad off the porch and away from the view of the dog. I tyhen let the dog out, and it was a happy ending for all.

Some of you know that we've been suffering from a terrible drought in my part of the country. Not only has it been too dry, but it's been much too hot as well. So I haven't really been going out much. The heatwave seems to finally be over now, so maybe I'll be able to get back to my little adventures.

I haven't really had much to write about because of all of these problems. I did get obsessed with a video game called Skyrim while I was inside hiding from the heat. I haven't played video games in years, but this one got me hooked. I won't say much more than that about it.

But now I'm back, at least most of the time, from this hypnotic game. And these fat old toads are everywhere around here. I saw another one hopping around in the vegetable garden the next day. I didn't get any pictures, but I got some pictures of some other interesting little creatures. Now I'm hoping to get caught back up with everything that is blogging in the next few days.

I Found Frogs!

Just like it says in the title, I found frogs! I'm really excited about this because these are the first frog pictures I've ever had. As a matter of fact, these are the first frogs I've really even seen on my everyday adventures.

I've had plenty of toads before, but no frogs. I know toads are really a kind of frog but a little different, but finding real frogs has been a goal of mine. I never thought I'd be able to see any frogs because they are almost always in the water. Let me tell you how I found these.

I was walking across a small footbridge, and I was looking down into the water when I saw little bubbles in the water. I was expecting to find a crayfish, but when I looked closer I found this frog above. He looked to be about as long as one of my fingers.

I did the second picture with the flash on because it was dark. It makes the frog look very different. I don't normally use a flash, and I was experimenting with it a bit. I found two frogs near each other, and I took pictures of each one with the flash off and then on.

While I was taking the pictures, a dragonfly kept flying near the frogs, and the first one jumped at it and tried to catch it. But I didn't get any pictures of that. Such a shame. Now I'm doomed to a life of utter misery.

Let's pause from the frog talk for a minute so I can share a couple of blogging tips, as I promised. Most of these will be more closely related to Blogger because that's what I use, but some, like today's are useful to everyone.

The first little tip I want to share is a Blogger related thing. Many of you may have noticed problems with Blogger and the comment system. I'm guessing that you are using Internet Explorer. If you switch to either Firefox or Google Chrome your problems will go away. Don't worry, you can use all of these browsers at the same time if you like. I use five different ones. This problem is Blogger's fault, but that is the solution.

I also recently found out some information about Picasa, the service where all of our Blogger pictures are stored. As many of you know, we have a total of 1 GB to store our photos. After that, we're either out of luck or we have to purchase more. But Picasa has given us a workaround.

They say if your pictures are 800 pixels or less, then they don't count towards your total 1 GB storage limit. So I am now making my pictures 800x600 or less. I may be wrong, so I'm going to monitor my amount used to see if I'm right. Here's a link to their post about this info. See what you think.

Back to the frogs! I can remember hearing frogs croaking at the edge of most ponds I've been to, but I never see them. Now I'll know to look for those bubbles. That's one more little nature thing I've learned now. Now I can find frogs easier. Maybe I can even learn to con them into liking me, like I do with deer.

I'd show you a picture of the bridge I was on, but it's only a couple of pieces of plywood nailed to some four by fours. Really not much of a bridge at all, but it does the job. Otherwise I'd have to walk into the creek and get eaten by alligators. Well, maybe only imaginary-gators. But those kind are sometimes just as dangerous if you walk around the woods in a giant rat suit.

You don't believe me about the rat suit? I'll leave you with one last picture then.

It's only because the zipper's stuck and I can't get out.


Nature Center Magazine - I've done a total redesign of Nature Center Magazine. Come over and take a look at the new Nature Center Magazine!

Early Spring Frog Sounds

I have a wonderful video today for you. I hope it makes up for the lack of the ice quakes this year. Ever since the first spring I started going to Carpenter Lake Nature Preserve I began hearing the sound of thousands of frogs in the vernal pond near the front of the forest there.

The first time I heard the sounds I was confused as to what they were. I thought maybe they were coming from a strange kind of bird. That may sound silly, but I was erroneously told at the time that there weren't many frogs here in Michigan. I have found out since then that that information was very false.

As the vernal pond grew with passing early spring, the number of frogs grew by the thousands. I would hear the sounds, and I wanted so badly to be able to share them with everyone here. I had no idea that I already had that capability. I thought it would never happen. But now it has!

In this new episode of Rat TV I bring you the sound of at least one early spring frog. It is coming from a surprising place though. I expected it from the vernal pond in the forest, but there are other wet areas in this park too. This one is out at the front near the parking lot.

When I heard the frog, I quickly walked over to the area the sounds were coming from.  They are very loud throughout the video. Unfortunately there is no video of the frog itself. I have actually never seen one of these frogs. They hide very well when I get close. You'll see and hear in the video that the frog stops its noise when I get close.

One other thing that happened was that I startled a bird that was also hiding nearby in the weeds. Only a very transparent shadow shows. You probably can't see it even if you look closely, but the bird passed right in front of the camera. I spotted the shadow in the original video.

This is not the most exciting video, but I hope you enjoy the frog sounds.

And this last picture is for those of you who are video challenged. This is where the frog was hiding. The bird flew from the weeds on the left to pass right in front of me. I saw no sign of the frog, but it sure did make a lot of noise.

I'll be back tomorrow with something very surprising!

The Cutest Poll Results

Well, it looks like this week's poll was a close contest. But after the smoke cleared there is definitely a winner! The Squirrels are officially the cutest of these five contestants! They won with 35% of the votes, 11 votes. The ending results seem narrow, but the squirrels lead the whole way!

The squirrels told me that they knew all along they'd win. They claimed to be far superior to any other forest creature. And who could argue their point when you look at the wonderful mother squirrel in the picture here. They will now constantly remind all the others of their greatness. Congratulations to those cute little squirrels. Don't you just love their big bushy tails?

Coming in at Second Place with 29% of the votes, 9 votes, were those lovable little Chipmunks! They have many great qualities of their own, such as those cute stripes down their backs. And how can you forget their insatiable curiosity? That is a very cute quality that at least deserves second place very much!

The leader of the chipmunks kept wondering how it was that the squirrels could possibly win over them. He asked me several times what the squirrels had that they didn't. I simply told him that I didn't really know. He finally decided he would have to investigate this further, and scurried off in search of the squirrels.

At third place were the Deer. They came in with a respectable 19% of the votes, 6 votes. They were the largest animals in this contest, so maybe that factored into their third place finish. Sometimes small and furry wins automatically. The deer have their own good qualities though. Who doesn't love the shyness of that most famous deer, Bambi?

Well, I interviewed the representative of the deer, which by coincidence resembled Bambi very much. She shyly walked over and told me it was okay that not that many of you thought she was cute. She said she really understood. Still, I could see the deep sadness and hurt in her face. She even shed a single tear before she turned and walked back to her place.

Fourth place belongs to the Ducks. They ended up with only 9% of the votes, 3 votes. I'm actually surprised at this one. Ducks seem a little cuter than that to me. Those cute bills that are made to scoop up food, and the way they duck under the water and stick their rear ends up in the air seems so charming.

I tried to interview the only duck that showed up for the contest. Well, the only adult duck. She was a mother with a full group of ducklings in tow. She was completely indifferent to this contest, and she only seemed interested in keeping her young ones in line. When I tried to ask her a question, she just turned her head and swam the other way.

And finally we come to the last contestant of the poll. The Toads came in at 5th place, last. They unexpectedly got 2 votes, which was good for 6% of the final tally. I know! I was surprised they got so many too! I'm trying to come up with a compliment, but I'm at a loss for words. Well, they are pretty good at peeing on people.

I was going to wrap this up right here, but the toad boss insisted that he get equal interview time. I waited while he cleared his throat, and he said in a gravelly voice that this contest was completely unfair. The audacity! He demanded a recount, but I told him to go and croak. He then threatened to give me a bad case of warts, and then hopped away in a huff.

Okay then! That's the end of this weeks Poll Ceremonies. I'd say this was the most successful poll yet here on The Everyday Adventurer. I hope the next one will be just as fun. I'll leave you now with one more picture of one of the winners. Here's another one of the cutest squirrels I have ever seen:

Isn't he just precious?

Micro Toads

The toad you se in this top picture is not what it appears to be. Make no mistake, it is indeed a toad. It's just a very small toad. In fact, this toad is probably only the size of a small child's fingernail. If you didn't look twice, you might mistake it for an insect.

I saw several of these on the trail the other day, and I've been waiting for these creatures to come back for years. The first time I saw them they were even much smaller than this. And back then there were thousands, maybe even millions, of these micro toads roaming the trails.

You'll have to expand this picture to see the toad.

This year there were only a few, but that is still enough for me to know for sure that I wasn't imagining things. I wasn't so sure a short time ago. While at another park, I saw what looked like these microscopic toads on one of the trails at the back. When I looked closer it turned out to be ugly little spiders, and there were millions swarming around me. Uughhh!!

Ever since that incident I thought maybe my long ago tiny toads were a figment of my imagination. Now I know for a fact that my little hopping toads were as real as those awful arachnids, and the toads will probably eat those sinister spiders. Let's move this on to be a little more pleasant.

Here is another of the toads I found on the trail. This one was at a completely different part of the park from the other one. This is not one of the largest parks you'll ever find, but it's big enough to give you a nice workout if you hike through it. Most normal people don't make it all the way to the back.

The point is that these toads are not just confined to one area of the park. I was finding them in every area that is dark, and at all ends of the park. At one point I thought I stepped on one and killed it or injured it badly. They are very hard to see, and it was too late for me to move my foot. I found nothing when I checked, but I agonized over this for two days!

Death is a part of nature, but I just don't want to be the one responsible. I'll eat the hamburger, I just don't want to be the one that butchers the animal to get the meat. Wait, wait! Here's another one to lighten the mood. I'll drive the car, but I don't want to be the one to build it. Ha!

Finally, the point is that I found my toads! These were some of the first great wonders of my hiking experiences. It happened long before this blog, and I've been waiting for the return ever since. This is a little incomplete since there aren't the millions I hoped for, but they do indeed exist and now I am satisfied!

Alice and the Toad Prince

It has been a long time since I last had a visit from my little friend Alice. I was finally able to drag her away from her favorite cartoon, Scooby Doo, so she could go on a short hike with me. I thought she might like to see some of the warm weather animals I've been visiting in one of my favorite nature parks.

We were in luck because there were many of them that came out to see Alice for the first time. It's not every day that you get to meet a big star from Wonderland like Alice, so I think most of the animals were pretty excited. I didn't see that evil squirrel Mr. Nutz out there anywhere though. I think he's afraid of her.

A black squirrel greeted us at the front of the park, but it ran as soon as I tried to get its picture. Next were the young geese that I've been watching. They thought Alice was about the best creature they had ever seen, so they swam over to see her. Even the cormorant lake monster was there. I was glad because I know Alice had never seen that before.

After visiting with many of the animals at this nature park, and getting another look at the dam, Alice and I headed back to the trail. As we were walking back through the darkest part of the forest a big toad hopped over to the side of the trail and stopped and stared at Alice.

I was the first one to see it so I looked at her and asked her if she wanted to see a toad. She likes all animals so we stopped to see this new wonder. As I began taking my pictures of this toad I told Alice to pick it up. She of course refused. I teased her and told her if she kissed this toad it would turn into a prince.

Little Alice looked at me and said that all that would happen is that the toad would pee on her and give her warts. She then said she would beat it up if it turned into a prince anyway. Just like me, little Alice is Irish, and that's how we handle just about everything. So since I didn't want a punch in the stomach I decided that we should probably move on our way.

I looked back once at this poor toad still waiting there beside the trail. I guess it would never know what it would be like to be a prince. Alice was probably right that there would be no prince, because it was actually a frog in the old story that became a prince. Maybe this toad was just trying to fool us.

Alice quickly forgot this incident, but she did like seeing all of the animals, even the toad. I think she was probably glad that the snakes didn't come out to meet her though. As we arrived back at the front of the park Alice happily began practicing her skipping. She had been having trouble learning that, so she's glad she figured it out.

After we had seen all of the animals and flowers we could, and after Alice got to pick out a very good stick to wave around at her brother, we decided it was time to go. I took Alice back to Wonderland so she could go back to watching her cartoons. She likes going on adventures, but she really likes her cartoons just a little bit more.

Any of you who have never met my little friend Alice can click here to read about some of her other adventures on these trails with me.

American Toad

I finally found what I've been looking for! That's right, it's this little toad. It's called an American Toad because it's a very common toad in America. This is what those tadpoles I showed you a few days ago are going to turn into. I did another story about them a long time ago here.

It actually took me awhile to identify this toad because it looks different than most of the pictures of American Toads I found. I couldn't tell if it was a toad or a frog either. In the process of searching, I found out some interesting information about toads.

The first main thing I found out was that toads are actually just a type of frog. When I was a kid somebody told me that toads only looked like frogs, and that toads were actually reptiles, while frogs were amphibians. I believed that for a long time, although I always had trouble with that idea. Of course now I know that both are amphibians, and both are frogs too.

There are some differences between toads and frogs though. Toads have rougher and thicker skin so they can survive better in dryer areas. Toads also secrete a form of poison from their skin to protect them from predators. Most are harmless but you should wash your hands if you touch a toad, to get rid of any of this poison.

Toads also don't have any teeth, while some frogs do have teeth. That's why toads have that poison. They can't really bite a predator to protect themselves, so they need something. That's why they have the poison. For these reasons toads are gentle creatures. You might be too if you were toothless.

I just happened to find this little toad when I decided to take a shortcut to the fishing platform. I'll have to show that to you again pretty soon. Now that the leaves are on the trees, that place is even more beautiful. Anyway, while I was walking down this shortcut path I saw this little toad hopping down the side of the path too.

It was obviously trying to get out of my way so I wouldn't accidentally squish it. It stopped as soon as we both reached the bottom of the hill and the end of the path. I knew I had the perfect opportunity to get some good pictures of a toad for the very first time. I did exactly that. I must have taken close to fifty pictures of this little creature.

I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but this toad is only a little longer than one inch. That's about the length of one section of your finger from knuckle to knuckle for all of you who use the metric system. You can also look at the leaves in the picture to get an idea how big the toad is.

A good thing about toads like this one is that along with some birds, it might eat those spiders I showed you yesterday. As a matter of fact I noticed that robins like that trail with the spiders very much. They must be having a lot of fun eating all of those tiny spiders. Once the tadpoles become toads, they'll probably wipe out all of those spiders.

It's really strange how one little decision can change things. I almost didn't take that shortcut because it's not a real park trail. When I decided to do it I thought I might miss seeing a squirrel or something like that. How was I to know I would just happen to find this little toad?

Tadpoles

I finally saw evidence of something I've been looking for since before I started this blog. A few years ago at this time of the year while I was hiking along the trails at the first nature park I ever visited, I saw what looked like tiny bugs jumping around on the trail.

There were thousands of these things, maybe even millions. They were covering the trails in this place for about a mile. When I say covering, I really mean it. Everywhere I stepped, swarms of these tiny creatures would hop out of the way of my feet. After awhile I got curious enough to look closer.

When I took a closer look I discovered that these weren't bugs at all. They were tiny little frogs! Maybe they were toads, but I can't really tell the difference anyway. I'll call them frogs for now. My curiosity about these frogs might have been what gave me the original thought about expanding my knowledge of nature, and then lead to the idea of creating this blog.

After I had the idea for the blog, those tiny frogs were one of the very first I looked for. Unfortunately last year, I must have been a few weeks too late. I never found the swarms of frogs like I did before. I did find a few bigger ones on these trails though. They were the same type of frog, but they had grown bigger. You can see a picture of one of them here.

Well, this year I'm not going to be disappointed again. I looked in the pond at that park today, and I found millions of tadpoles. I'm absolutely sure these tadpoles are related to those frogs from long ago. It won't be long before I see more little frogs hopping all over the trails.

If you stop and think about it, it's amazing what kind of little thing really inspires us to enjoy something like nature, or makes us want to write. What kind of thing was your inspiration? Why do you like nature? Why do you write your blog, even if it's not about nature?

My blog might have started out because of this pond and those frogs, just like these tadpoles began there. Of course that's not the only reason for the blog, but it might have been the spark that lit the fire of my passion. What was your spark?

Vernal Pond Sounds

I know now that spring is definitely here! On my most recent hiking trip, I intended to just go out to enjoy the peace and quiet of nature. I really didn't expect to see anything different, because I had been coming to this park a lot lately. Instead of quiet though, I got a nice noisy surprise.

After I get truly into the forest in Carpenter Lake Nature Sanctuary, one of the first things I see is the Vernal Pond. In case you didn't know, the word vernal means something that occurs during spring. So the pond will probably dry up the rest of the year.

In fact, I watched as this vernal pond went from a dry place last winter, to this very wet pond that is already full of life now in the early days of spring. This has basically become a swamp area, and the water is pretty deep now. I've even seen ducks swimming in it.

This last time I was there, I heard something different as I entered the forest. The sound was coming from the direction of the pond. I say sound, but it actually was hundreds of sounds. There were far too many sounds to count, but I listened and tried to estimate. It must have been hundreds.

It was the croaking sounds of hundreds of frogs. As I got closer, I could hear the croaking sounds coming from everywhere in the pond. The frog sounds were drowning out everything else in the forest. This was amazing! I have never heard so many frogs before!

Up until now, I didn't think I would ever find frogs around here. I have seen thousands of tiny little toads before, but no frogs in this area. So, you can maybe imagine what a wonderful discovery this was for me. I have no particular love for frogs, but these are still a great new natural discovery for me.

As you can see, I don't have any pictures of them yet. I didn't even see any of them. I looked for them, but the pond is now so big, and the sounds only came from areas that were too deep in there for me to go. I'll be watching for them every time I go back there, so maybe I'll get a few pictures one of these times. But for now, these wonderful sounds were enough for me.


Related Posts

• Tiny Little Toad
• Something In The Water
• Water Strider