My Frog Catcher

My Frog Catcher

Brody is a budding herpetologist; in particular, he loves frogs.  During our trip to Maine, Grandma Kate I believe flushed this pickerel frog out of her flower beds as she watered them one evening. Needless to say, we had to catch this beautiful little frog!

Unlike the leopard frogs, pickerel frogs have squarish shaped, rather than round spots, but even more diagnostic is a wash of yolk-yellow on their bellows, in particular where their limbs meet their bodies.  You can just see a little bit of that yellow on the frog's belly and where the its front arm meets the body. While we love catching frogs and a bunch of animals at Little Pond, we do have one rule- all animals caught must be released before the day is over.  This one little guidline has worked quite well over the years, I recommend it for all parents that have frog and bug catching little ones.

-Tom

A Wider View - Wood Frog

June 7, 2013

While visiting Tummonds State Nature Preserve in Portage County last June, I didn't have my ultrawide angle lens with me, but that didn't prevent me from using the wide-angle closeup technique.  The so-called "kit lenses" that come bundled with digital SLR's can focus quite closely.  With my lens dialed in to its widest setting, I moved in on this frog as close as I could.  The end result is an image that shows the wood frog and its habitat.  To me, this picture provides much more information than a tight shot of the frog only.

-Tom

I Like it, I Love it, I Want Some More of It....

March 16, 2011, Delaware Wildlife Area

What could I be talking about?  Spring, of course!

I'm sorry if I've put the lyrics for an annoying country song into your head- but I just couldn't help myself.  Today while I was inching down a gravel road, trying to avoid massive potholes, I spotted a few hopping leopard frogs taking advantage of the warm afternoon.  Peepers and chorus frogs were also calling- all in the middle of the day.  I love spring.

Tom

Urban Bullfrog

Bullfrogs and American Toads are the only anuran species I've found at Kenney Park.  In a small stream like this, I would expect to see green frogs as well, but they just aren't around.  The bullfrog is king.  This is probably North America's most resilient frog species-  they can eat just about anything and they have even been introduced to areas of the country and are now considered invasive in those places. 

Tom

The Wood Frog

At the recent Ohio Reptile Research Conference, several of my friends were sharing their early spring amphibian adventures.  Their stories of calling frogs and migrating salamanders made me long for life in rural Ohio.  And then I got to thinking-  although there aren't many breeding amphibian populations in my native Franklin County, perhaps I could find could places to see and here spring breeding amphibians in Alum Creek State Park, just five miles or so north of our home.  Alum Creek surrounds a large reservoir, and there are plenty of low lying flat woods around it.  Last Saturday, I started on my quest, and sure enough, it wasn't long before I found several large and publicly accessible pools capable of supporting breeding amphibian populations.

Since I was doing this in the day, I didn't see all that many things, but I heard several calling spring peepers and chorus frogs, and even one wood frog.  After a great deal of searching, I managed to spot this male frog calling from a perch on a dead branch.  After I came too close, the frog jumped into the water but resurfaced quickly, allowing for a quick photographic opportunity.

For more about the amphibians of Ohio, visit www.ohioamphibians.com, a resource coordinated by Greg Lipps and Jeff Davis.

Tom

24 Hours in South Carolina

Megan and I had a great time in South Carolina, getting to spend plenty of time with my Mom and Brother. My dad was back in Ohio-he's been having chronic abdominal pain and didn't make the trip. No fun.

One of the things that I try to do when I first arrive at a new place is to take note of the first bird species I see. On Saturday morning, the first bird was a Eurasian collared dove. While we were waiting for 50 ridiculous minutes for our shuttle van to pick us up, I watched this bird make several trips from its oak tree nest to a flower bed. It would carefully look for the right type of material, and then it would fly down the airport pickup road and fly up into the tree. We had flown into Columbia, S.C. as it was much cheaper than leaving Columbus. And we flew from Dayton, probably right over Abe Lincoln's house!


After a two hour drive to Seabrook, we picked up our condo keys and headed to the place. The neighbor had parked his car in our driveway, which caused somewhat of a ruckus- we couldn't park in the driveway. We called security, etc. etc., the guy moved his car. All the while I noticed this green treefrog sleeping on the railing o f the entrance stairs to the condo. What an awesome creature. More on these later. So we arrived about two, and I had a few minutes to photograph whatever was around the condo.



Can you see the ant lion?



Then, it was off to the wedding, held at 6:15 on Friday evening.


Best of luck to the bride and groom, Amy and Jason!

The sun goes down in the west......


....and after a rousing good party, I woke the next morning to see the sun coming up behind the palm trees, golf course, and salt marsh, looking to the east.



Some type of resurrection fern?


The tree frogs were basking in the early morning sunshine.


And the male anoles were flapping their dewlaps to woo female anoles.


And this bee caught my eye.


And a great-crested flycatcher was nesting next door- in a cavity built right into the side of the condo.

And to end on a sad note, this cedar waxwing crashed into the condo next door, and I saw it flutter down, land in the soft pine straw and live oak leaf litter, and breathe its last breaths! How sad. What a beautiful bird.

And that was our Friday and Saturday morning on Seabrook Island!

Night of the Peepers

Before playing this video, be sure to crank up the volume on your computer. If you ears are hurting, that is how loud it really is when you're standing at the edge of a vernal pool, only feet away from hundreds of these little male frogs.

I love peepers. Spring peepers, that is. What I find amazing is that they congregate in huge numbers, but then are fairly well obscure the rest of the year, even though there are just as many of them out and about, they just don't all get together and scream for females like they were doing this night. Wow...that was a long sentence.

I'm getting super excited about spring. The salamander and peeper thing does it for me every year, and I'm so glad that we were able to get out. It is too bad that amphibians no longer congregate on the floodplain of the Olentangy at our house- We had to drive about twenty minutes to the outskirts of suburban Columbus to see these creatures.

Today, the ramps are up, and so are the trout lily leaves down by the river. An amazing site. And I checked on the lesser celandine flowers, they are ready to pop open, and probably will tomorrow with more sun. I'll have plenty of pictures of this invasive species, and all the native wildlflowers that grow in Kenney Park, in the next week to two weeks, so stay tuned. I always view this season as a race. Things change so quickly, at least in the botanical world, until about early July, when there is a slight reprieve. So lets all get on this roller coaster that is spring, I hope you enjoy the ride!

Tom

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The Life in a Vernal Pool

Don't worry everyone, I'm going to keep this blogging thing going for a long, long time. I just love nature and natural history too much to give it up! Megan and I finally got to a vernal pool on Monday evening, and we were about two weeks late for the main migration here in central Ohio. Egg masses abounded in the darkness, the peepers were calling like mad, and a few beautiful spotted salamanders still roamed the pools. Peeper videos to come tomorrow! Stay tuned......



Tom

Spring- Only a Few Weeks Away- Soon the Frogs and Sallys will Play

Click to play

So you're probably thinking, "Tom, are you crazy?" Even with more snow forecast tomorrow? Well, I went back through my photos of last year's activity, and let me just tell you that spring will be here soon. Soon we'll have a chorus of spring peepers across Ohio and the midwest. Megan and I shot this video of a single male spring peeper (Pseudacris cruicer) on March 18, 2007. The chorus of thousands of spring peepers can be deafening. Make sure you have your sound turned up when you watch the video- If it is hurting your ears, you are reliving the spring peeper chorus if full reality.

Yesterday I posted images of fine art, and today, I'm turning to my some of my favorite animals in Ohio, spring peepers and spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculata). With the first warm spring rain, these tiny creatures emerge from their winter hiding places and head to temporary pools to breed. The spotted salamanders will return to the ground while the peepers stick around in wetlands, catching bugs and avoiding predators.

Spotted salamander from Portage County, Ohio, March 2007.

Last year, Megan and I searched for spotted salamanders in Columbus, but only found the spring peepers heard in the viedo. Our second outing of the year turned up a few spotted salamanders, but me missed the mass migration.

I have, however, witnessed this magical event one time in my life, when I was a graduate student at Miami University. My herpetology professor scheduled a field trip to a known salamander breeding pond. We were accompanied by another graduate student who had been visiting the pond for weeks, but had found no salamanders. We left the campus about 8:00 at night, arriving at the woodland pool soon after. Sure enough, when we got there, there was nothing but peepers. We searched, and searched, and searched the pond, but found no spotted salamanders. Finally, a drip here, a drip there- it began to rain. Would anything happen? Someone shouted out, "I found one!" I thought to myself, "really?" I thought they were full of B.S. And the shout came not from the pond, but from up on the hill. The class raced to the spot, and sure enough, in the leaves, was a magnificent 6 inch long spotted salamander.

How cool! It continued to rain, and as we were gathered, another classmate "spotted" a spotted. Then another one. Then another one! After 10 minutes, we could barely walk in the woods without stepping one them. We collected 50 for the grad students project (he had a permit from the Ohio Division of Wildlife) but we could have collected hundreds. The most amazing thing about the whole night is how a quick change in environmental conditions caused these sallys to come out from underneath their hiding areas in the leaf little and logs. It was awesome.

Spotted salamanders from Butler County, March, 2003

When I first saw these creatures in person, several things come to mind. First is their size- they are massive compared to the woodland plenthodonitid salamanders that I was more familiar with. Second- their color is spectacular. Incredibly spectacular for a creature that spends most of its time underground, and when it is above ground, it is during the night time. Third- If a poacher ever found a mass migration, look out. Hundreds if not thousands can be gathered at one time, and during one night, an entire population could be eliminated.

I hope everyone gets to see an ambystomatid salamander (like the spotted) this spring!

Tom

Kingsville Swamp

When you go to a swamp, what to you expect to see? Frogs of course. In addition to very common green frogs and bullfrogs, I recently saw an American toad, spring peeper, and leopard frog at a property in Ashtabula county. I like frogs, and it was good to see so many hopping around on a humid, mild, late summer day.