Speaking of frogs....

[rmb...@istar.ca]

This latest rain has surely brought out the amphibians. We had
discussed earlier in the season the effects of the drought. I've
hardly seen any frogs away from the edge of water in the past 6 weeks,
but Monday night's rain and again last night has them a'swarmin'. I'm
still running the moth lights at night and have to be careful when I
step out onto the walkway. Tuesday night there was a bullfrog, a
dozen green frog, couple of leopard frogs, and a couple of toads
hopping about. At 2:00 a.m. I woke up and went out, and when I came
back in one of the larger green frogs jumped in the door and the chase
was on. I'm not as young and nimble as I once was, nor am I as awake
as in younger years. After some fumbling about and cursing I finally
got Froggie cornered, captured, and released back outside. I now open
the door gingerly and shoo away any frogs that are near the doorstep.

Couple nights ago there was a spring peeper hanging on the door, and
the balcony treefrog puts in a nightly appearance. These past couple
days Mr. Treefrog has been very vocal with his loud trilling.

Yesterday I found one blue salamander under the old piece of plywood
beside my parking area. Salamanders have been very sparse this year,
hopefully I'll be finding more in these next couple of months. I've
only seen a few blue and a couple of spotted, no newts/red efts or red
backed salamanders this year. Usually I see at least a few of those
each spring.

I have not seen "my" loons for a couple of days, they may have gone
south. The lake always seems so empty without them. The older I get
the quicker time seems to pass, but this summer flew by far too
quickly. That brutal heat had me sitting indoors most day and I feel
like a deprived child for not having been to get out and about
prowling the woodlands.

Perhaps now that we've had some good rain we'll see some fungi. I
have literally seen no mushrooms, it's been so dry. Come on puffballs!

Rose-Marie

[Fred Schueler]

On 9/25/2025 11:39 AM, rmb...@istar.ca wrote:

> This latest rain has surely brought out the amphibians.

* if the Kemptville Creek at the Oxford Mills dam, or the South Nation
at Bridge Street in South mountain are any indication, there are a lot
of frogs along the creeks ready to be unleashed on the countryside. Both
sites were bouncing with juveniles at recent visits - Bull & Green at
South Mountain, joined by Leopards at Oxford Mills.

fred.
------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
2024 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/11E63979
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
------------------------------------------------------------

[e.g. g]

By contrast, my amphibian co-habitants have been evident through August and early September even before this week's rain: constant numbers of _v new_ froglets (wood, peeper, tree, green) and toadlets hanging out with the crickets and all a-move as I pass through my fairly sandy grassed areas and sparse shrubberies.  An occasional older leopard.  (I am long a jinxed salamander hunter, so my not finding any of those this summer has no significance)

An overgrown mid-sized garden pond in a far corner of the property has retained a VERY low level of water, but water nonetheless. But the babies are spread out and roving steadily a good ways from it.  

Also, treefrogs have kept calling fairly regularly through the droughty weeks in what I consider a pretty dry section of mixed woods/pine plantation.

The roads near me go between damp areas and pondlets, so I have had to remain alert through even the drought weeks to dodge nighttime frogs on the pavement, albeit not in huge numbers.

But in more open field habitat in our region, where the shallower wetland and ditch water levels were down to damp flats of algae, I did have to help an unusual number of snappers going on August walkabout across roads to reach deeper waters.

Elizabeth G

------------------------------------------------------------

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NatureList" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to naturelist+...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/naturelist/91d3b44f-cd29-4941-8f4b-5fa550bc96ca%40istar.ca.