Toad-venture Update

We have been busy in the yard this summer, so I haven't been able to take a moment to update the blog with information about the Toad-venture. Unfortunately, our little experiment didn't work out with the "pond" in the backyard. I had to replace the water everyday due to what I thought was extreme evaporation rates, however it turns out that our dog, Kiara, was drinking all of the water whenever we let her out in the yard alone. So...it didn't work out. We did, however, find some tadpoles in a lake in Lakeland, so Mika was able to experience their transformation into little toads. What fun it was for him! We released them into the wild a few weeks ago.

Monarch butterflies mating in our yard

We were all excited when we first saw some Monarch butterflies mating in our yard, but now it's a really common occurrence. It's amazing how you don't notice some things, but once they are brought to your attention, you begin to see it as a common occurrence. Here's the first time we saw some Monarchs mating in our yard. You can also hear how awkward it was to explain it to our kids. They are really young (4 and 2), so we hadn't really thought about the "birds and the bees" talk yet...as is obvious in the video. LOL.

Toad-venture

We've started a new adventure in our backyard recently. Mika has been talking about wanting to raise a frog from a tadpole for quite a while now. I have searched online but have only found non-native species (such as African frogs) in the "grow-a-frog" kits. Ideally, I want to grow a native and release it into the wild. After more thought, I decided that toads would be the better way to go (frogs kind of freak me out, but toads don't at all - - it's a "personal space and power" issue - plus, frogs eat caterpillars...). I called and e-mailed the Florida Fish and Wildlife organization and the UF extension office, however no one could provide any helpful information other than "look in a local pond and scoop up some tadpoles." Well, that's easy to say if you know (1) which type of pond to choose, (2) where in the pond to look, (3) the difference between frog and toad tadpoles, and (3 - the biggie) if you don't have two very small children who you need to watch and are afraid the alligator would like to "watch" as well...

So...I posted a "Wanted" ad on Craigs List offering money for tadpoles. The few responses I did receive were ridiculous and were clearly not from people who knew much (if anything) about toads. Another dead end!

At this point I decided to create my own toad habitat in hopes that we could attract some toads to lay eggs in our "pond" in the backyard. I researched the two main types of toads that are native to this area (southern toads and oak toads) and created a small shallow "pond" in a shaded area of our yard. We then decided to "relocate" some toads to see if we could increase our chances of having some toads leave some eggs for us. At dusk for the past two days, Mika and I went on "toad hunts" and rounded up some "volunteer toads" to live in our backyard. And yes, I realize that increasing our toad population could very well increase our snake population. Wish us luck! It would be really cool if Mika could see the entire life cycle from egg to frog.

The first night we "collected" toads, they sang from inside the bucket. It was really cool. Mika and I had listened to the toad calls online earlier that day, so it was a great opportunity to reinforce that information. When I was a kid, I don't recall toads singing like that when I caught them (though I caught different types of toads because I grew up in New England). Unfortunately, we didn't listen to the calls again online until the next morning and I couldn't recall which type of toad they sounded like (oaks or southerns). That would have been such an easy way to identify them! Oh well...

The second night we "collected" toads, we decided to take pictures of them so we could take our time identifying them the next day. I don't like keeping them in captivity very long; my goal is catch and release ASAP. I haven't had time to research them yet, but will do so soon and post the information here. In the meantime, I have attached some pictures. We placed the Sprite can in the bucket so we could determine size later. The big one seemed HUGE when we found it in our neighbor's yard, however he didn't seem nearly as big once we set the Sprite can next to him (which made me happy that we decided to have a reference for size).

Hooray! A beautiful healthy monarch butterfly emerged from the superglued chrysalis. What a wonderful sight! :)

Our Backyard Habitat

This is our butterfly garden's second year and it started out a little rough. The cold winter really hurt the garden (I knew I should have covered the plants!), but after cutting the entire garden all the way back to the ground, it has grown back greener and more lush! We had our first caterpillars a few weeks ago and waited until they were really big to put them in captivity. We started out with only a couple of cats. Within a day or two they created chrysalises. Then every day we would find four or five large cats in the garden. Mika was especially good at finding them because they were often right at his eye level. One of the chrysalises fell down immediately after it was created, so I picked that one up and super-glued the hanging part to a small cloth and pinned the cloth to the top of the butterfly enclosure. I don't know if that will work out. That chrysalis doesn't look as "green" as the others...and it appears to have a small dent. We'll see. Arnold said that super-glue is probably toxic, so that may not have been the best idea. I think it's up to Mother Nature at this point. We released our second Monarch butterfly today (I'll post the video) and have 19 chrysalises, one large cat, and one medium-sized cat in captivity. We should be releasing a butterfly or two every day for the next week or so if all goes well.