This frog loooked happy!

[perplexed ponder]

There it was just hanging out in the pads near mayla

[Esther]

Hi handsome..

I didn't have ANY frogs this year. Yet yesterday we were walking the dog and when I walked past a curb drain, I could hear a frog going "boing" down under the road. It was just across the street and up one house. I leaned over and told him that there was a lovely pond just down the street.

[marla]

Oh that is a fantastic picture!  Esther, oh I think if I didn't have the frogs in the pond I'd go out and hunt some up....this year has been a super year for frogs for us, especially in the lily pond as the koi can't get the little taddpoles for snack food.

[greenthumbnails]

That is a pretty big frog.  I am guessing its a bullfrog?  Can a toad get as big as a bullfrog or is there some general rule like frogs are bigger than toads etc?  I still cannot tell the difference other than to look for webbed feet if its a frog and to notice if it leaves the pond area then its a toad vs frogs hang around.  A lot of my toadpoles have left the pond/tub now but they don't look like toads (no warts) and they seem to have suction cup feet so I guess I'll never know what they are.....


I caught this tiny one on camera today...

[Esther]

Over the years we have purchased tadpoles + adding frogs we caught. They either have left on their own or died in the winter as there is no place for them to hibernate as it is a liner pond. I have heard people ask if they were to put a pan of dirt in the bottom, maybe the frogs would find it to dig into. I don't know.

[perplexed ponder]

Hey Greenthumbs! You have tree frogs! AWESOME! I know we have them in Michigan, I saw one once in the woods up North. I have never seen them in the pond.

Esther, we don't have much luck with frogs either. I found a big one dead in the skimmer a couple weeks ago. It had been there awhile, so I don't know what happened to him. We find they are either taken or wander off. If htey stay, most don't make it through the winter. I think I had one survive this year (probably the poor thing that ended up in the skimmer). It always makes me feel like a killer. We didn't let the kids bring frogs to the pond this year. We told tghem if they show up we'll let them stay but we aren't bringing them to have them die.

We went to a garden center in Brandon Mi. They had a zillion frogs. The owner told me that they never had luck overwintering until they got enough "gunk" on the bottom for htem to overwinter. Well, let me tell you. I have never seen such a case of string algae. It was probably a foot thick everywhere but where the waterfall drove it to the sides. It was really awful. Definately a frog pond, not a fish pond. You could not see water. I bet it's a mosquito nirvana.

Have you heard about frogwatch? In the spring, one selected day, you go out and count how many frogs you hear within a certain range from your house. It's through the national wildlife federation. There is a fungus killing off huge numbers of frogs and they are really in need of count people for the study. (I'm going to check it out.) My daughter's National Geographic kids magazine just had an article on how this fungus is wiping out rainforest frogs. Researchers are capturing frogs that don't have it and putting them "in hospital" to try to see if they have a certain resistance to it and if they can save them. I'll see if I can find a link to the article to post.

[greenthumbnails]

Over the years we have purchased tadpoles + adding frogs we caught. They either have left on their own or died in the winter as there is no place for them to hibernate as it is a liner pond. I have heard people ask if they were to put a pan of dirt in the bottom, maybe the frogs would find it to dig into. I don't know.

This might work.  I have this huge mound of sand (yes like beach sand...I'm in FL) that I keep under and in between a tarp from my gardening excavations.  The tarp is used to keep the sand in one place otherwise the heavy rainfall we get just washes away the sand into the lawn.  So anyways, recently while digging into this mound of sand for some dirt to plant my lilies with I encountered at least 3 toads (I think they were toads) that were buried halfway into the sand.  It was pretty neat with them looking up at me as if I couldn't see them!  Now I have to watch where I put that shovel....

[perplexed ponder]

Oh my frog was just a common green frog. He's pretty small, but Ithink the picture makes him look big.

Frogs will wander away from the pond to hunt. So just because they are not there one day doesn't mean they won't be back! Mine wander through my gardens quite often.

[karen J]

Kathy & Green thumbnails, & Esther
There is a good article about overwintering frogs here:
http://www.nwf.org/frogwatchusa/pdfs/overwinter.pdf

The article is associated with the Frogwatch people and can be accessed from their site.

Your frogs are adorable Kathy and Greenthumbnails. That is such a tiny little treefrog. What area of the country are you in?

[Esther]

Yup, that was a good article. Just what I had heard. Mine, um, were floating upside down during an unusually warm time. Then it got cold again. I think that was the spring before last.

[lorraine1960]

I just love frogs....i have some also in my pond and i sit outsie and listen to them....just love it...those are adorable..lorraine   

[marla]

I believe most of the frogs we have dig themselves in in the lily pots or deep in the cracks of the stones amongst the plant roots.  Last year we did leave a cat litter box with a mixture of sand and leaves in the lily pond...while cleaning out the biofalls in late Nov. we found about 5 frogs...so we placed them in the litter box.....come spring they were not in there but we had oddles of frogs in the ponds.

[greenthumbnails]

Kathy & Green thumbnails, & Esther
There is a good article about overwintering frogs here:
http://www.nwf.org/frogwatchusa/pdfs/overwinter.pdf

The article is associated with the Frogwatch people and can be accessed from their site.

Your frogs are adorable Kathy and Greenthumbnails. That is such a tiny little treefrog. What area of the country are you in?

Karen-My little "treefrog" is in sunny Florida

[karen J]

greenthumbnails
Wow is he ever cute. Makes sense that he would choose sunny Florida! 
We have different tree frogs here, but they are all still adorable. What is it about frogs?

I had a bad time a couple years ago where I pulled 24 dead green or bull frogs out of my skimmer in spring. It was horrible. I still don't know what caused that (had the pots of dirt to burrow into, and had the deicer- why did they go for the skimmer?), but it really got me thinking about why frogs seem so fragile. Perhaps they succumbed to the fungus? Not enough oxygen? Too dumb to discover the pots of dirt? Pollutants? I like to think they are more intelligent than they really are.

[reddad35]

 When I lived in florida I had tree frogs every where you could think of. In the fall and winter, which was warm, I lived in south florida, there would be probably 10 every day in the wreaths my wife  would put on the door. When night time came they would move to the rocks of the water fall and all around the sides. My pond lights were on all night and so were the frogs. I actually was able to get them started a little early,before dark, by doing their call to them. Their throats would expand and that was the only way you knew who was talking.

 Since I have moved to Indiana I have not seen a tree frog. I have seen bull frogs and wonder where in the heck they came from. We have a large lake a distance from our house but we live on a ridge. I joke with my wife that the frogs that moved to our house all said to each other, "do you hear that?, hey bud lets go check it out." this while they were living in a 10 acre lake.

 My son and I put in a railroad tie and old brick patio in the back yard. (I  will get a pic posted of that) We dug out  some grass and dirt to level the ties and just piled it into a  spot in the yard. It was almost fall and we left it till spring. My wife and I decidedto make a new flower garden this spring and we made it where we had piled the dirt. While digging and spreading we came across many many frogs/ toads buried in the soil.

I guess the moral to this story is if you have a pile of soil, your frogs will find it and come out in the spring. I feel my frogs will bury themselves under the mulch and into the dirt next to my falls.

[perplexed ponder]

Karen,'that article was great! Thanks!!
My pond did have a point last winter where my heater failed and it totally froze. I lost my big koi too.