Deer, new pond inhabitant

I've been lax about posting, but we saw 4 does the other week. I also spotted a new pond inhabitant--I saw something that looked like a small frog in the pond, and sure enough it was! It looked like a baby, which is strange considering the time of year. It appeared after it had rained several days in a row. I'm not sure whether it came from somewhere else, or was one of the original tadpoles. It seemed awfully small to be one of the original tadpoles. Hopefully it is big enough to survive the winter.

Fox Sighting!

I was looking at the backyard and saw a fox again! This is the first time in several months. It was not really in our yard but more in the park land trotting through the park. I will have to be on the lookout again now that I know they are still around. The pond has at least one frog daily. I was looking with the binoculars and one frog has a bright green mouth, and reddish brown eyes, whereas the larger frog doesn't have a bright green mouth but has a yellowish lower lip.

Hummingbird

We have had a hummingbird feeder out for a few months now, but I had never seen any hummingbirds at the feeder. I stopped changing the nectar since I thought nothing was coming, but then the other day I saw a hummingbird! I was afraid the old nectar would make it sick, so I put in new nectar and bought some more. Since then I've seen the hummingbird on at least two separate days. On Saturday we must have seen it like 5 times. It is so tiny and its little tail waggles when it is flying.

Deer

Tonight we saw a young buck in the backyard. We watched it eating vegetation as it walked farther in the back yard. Then up walks another buck! ...And another!!! The poor third buck was skinny, kind of mangey, and had a slight limp. Considering this is the suburbs, it was kind of surprising to see any deer, although I knew deer had been here before.

Pond Fiasco

Over the weekend we removed the pot we tried to use as a fountain, and tried to set up the fountain with just the slabs of rock. It seemed to work, so we let the fountain run a while. I turned it off that night, but in the morning most of the water was gone! Apparently the hose had come off and the water didn't get back into the pond. The poor baby frog was still sitting in there without much water, but the large adult frog wasn't there. So we filled the pond up again and fixed the fountain. Two frog have been spotted since, so I guess the adult frog came back.

Mouse in the House

The other day, we heard a screeching, and then our plumpest cat came running through the living room with her mouth full and a tail hanging out. :/ We managed to get her to release the mouse, and I thought it was dead, but then I saw it breathe! So after observing it for a little while, we thought it looked okay because it could run around in a garbage can, so we released it outside. We saw the ground cover move so it must have run off. Poor thing. It was just a baby Peromyscus (white footed mouse). I had done a science project once on homing in white footed mice, and no matter how far away I released the mice I caught, they would always come back and get caught in the live traps again. (We would snip their fur to be able to recognize them). This one mouse I had caught several times, except one cold night it had gotten into the trap even though I would close the traps over night, and we thought it had frozen to death. My mother gave it CPR (well, she rubbed its chest) and I saw it breathe! So we kept it in a cage for a week, and then released it. "Frozen Boy" kept getting caught in the traps after that and I can't remember if I continued to transport him and release him, or if I decided to retire him from the experiment.

Buck in backyard.

Frog Update

The large frog has been out regularly and I occasionally see a baby frog. I never did see 200 baby frogs all at once, but have seen one baby frog at a time every now and then. I wonder if it's the same one the whole time, or a new one? I was looking at the baby frog today which looked kind of different, but then it went MIRP! and dove off the plant pot into the pond, which confirmed it's the same species. The katydids are chorusing up a storm. I love the sound because it reminds me of home.

Zoomed in picture of hawk (Oct. 4, 2003).

Hawk sitting on the deck near the pond. (Oct. 4, 2003)

Hawk!

This morning at around 8:30 I heard "ee-yahr! ...ee-yahr!...ee-yahr!" so I looked outside and saw a hawk flying through the forest. It landed high up in the tree canopy. It had bands on its tail and was pretty large-at least macaw sized. There may have been another hawk calling in the distance. It is probably the same species we had seen in 2003. The pictures are of the hawk in 2003, which spent a good 15 minutes taking a bath in the pond.

Baby frog sighting

A baby frog, maybe the same one from yesterday, was in the pond today. I saw a bug, and then I saw it eat the bug, and then it hopped up on the edge of the pond. I also saw the chipmunk today, but it was missing half its tail. :(

Cat Snack or Frog Rescue?

Earlier today the large adult (male?) frog was out, and what I thought was the smaller adult (female?) frog sitting on a pot of marginal plants. On closer inspection, it wasn't the small adult, but a baby frog! It was much larger than the puny froglet I had seen the other day. If it's the same one, it sure did grow fast. It's about the size of a golf ball or silver dollar. Then around dusk, I spotted the stray cat. It looked like it was trying to catch something in the ground cover, and then I saw something jump and I thought it was a toad! So I raced out and shooed the cat away, which at first wanted to ignore me and continue pawing at its find, but then it walked off. It wasn't a toad but a baby frog! It was just sitting there, not moving. We wondered if it was alive, although it had its eyes open. So I picked it up and turned it over to see if it was injured. It was breathing and seemed okay, but it must have been scared. We held it and took pictures, and then were debating where exactly in the pond to release it. It didn't have the patience to wait, and leapt out of my hand and did a belly flop into the pond and went swimming off. So it felt good to save its life, although I feel a little guilty that I deprived the cat of a juicy morsel. Still, I get the feeling the cat is well fed because if it were that hungry it probably would have eaten the frog already. I wonder if there were other fledglings that it already ate. It's the same cat in the picture lying near the pond. So that was exciting to hold the frog. It felt moist and squishy, but he had cute big eyes.

Holding the baby frog.

Baby frog posing for a picture on the pond deck.

Baby frog on walkway.

First baby frog sighting

Last Friday the 24th, I saw that a little frog was sitting on the edge of the pond. It was only thumbnail sized, and didn't move, but it appeared to be alive. I didn't think the tadpoles would turn into frogs that small. The tadpoles are harder to find these days, but they are still in there. The toad was spotted on Saturday in the garage, and the frog has been out recently too. Tonight the large adult frog was out, and then a stray cat walked up, and lay down on the shore of the pond about a foot or two from the frog. I thought it was stalking the frog, but it didn't seem interested in it. When I went outside to try to get a better picture, the frog jumped in the pond, and the cat walked away. I also saw something else new the other day. I saw a bright red bug in the water. I fished it out with the net, and it didn't seem like it wanted to be in the pond, so I put it on a fern. It almost seemed like a large spider mite. The water lily is doing well, and all of a sudden the algae on the pond has disappeared.

Stray cat lying near the pond.

Toad in my Abode

On Friday we had a toad visitor, found in the garage. I held it, and it was real nice. We released it near the pond, and it ate a bug and then crawled off into the vegetation. I had been wishing for toads because unlike frogs, you can easily hold them. I hope we see him again. As for the tadpoles, I found a couple more dead ones, which had legs! Fully formed thighs and calves, but still very puny. They were still attached to the tail, but I saw some live ones with the legs already free from the tail. So that was neat. I wonder what will happen when they all are ready to fledge? If they will stay in the pond or disperse? And I wonder how long it will be until that happens.

My toad friend.