Froglet in The High Desert | Mrsroadrunner Photography

Froglet in The High Desert | Mrsroadrunner Photography




Meet the Froglet , or Baby Frog here in Our pond! This Froglet is the common frog we have. The Pacific Tree Frog has to have a place to lay eggs and for those eggs to grow into adult frogs. Of course the Pacific Tree Frog uses any source of water for this process, this pond of ours is one of those places.





At this stage of growth this Froglet is still not mature enough to leave the water for good. However at this stage the Froglets start coming out of the water checking out things.

The shot above there are at least one Froglet and a tadpole under the water. This small pond of ours is the one pond this species of Frog likes, the other pond has Toads that make the other pond theirs so this species is not to fond of that pond. Or if they are, I do not get the chance to observe them.





You can see from the above shot, the Tadpoles are of different sizes, we do have several different species of Frogs and Toads that show up here at home. So the two above may not even be the same species?? The eyes seam to be the same color, so I feel these two are the same species just different sizes and in different stages of growth. I am not expert, I just spend time with the Tadpoles, Froglets. Much like folks who spend time with their fish.....

This pond has Raspberries growing around it which brings in many creatures, plus the berries themselves have a way of dropping into the water. The wild birds also use this and the other pond. Because of all the life in the ponds we do add fresh water to the ponds at least two times a day. We were thinking of putting one of those waterfalls in the pond, however I like all the life in the ponds and do wonder if we did add such a feature would it do something to the life in the pond? Would the waterfall disturb the eggs??





The mature Frogs do branch out. Moving to where a food source is. Food sources being any creepy crawling thing they can find. I even watched a mature Pacific Tree Frog eat a dung beetle, which the mature Frog instantly spit out of his mouth. Not tasting to good perhaps? This of course made me laugh!

What I get a kick out of is when the neighborhood kids find a mature Frog!! The small kids get such a kid out of seeing them, and perhaps catching them? I asked a child of perhaps age 8 who was new to me, if he likes Frogs. Instantly telling me NO. So I do worry about our small friends who helps with our organic garden. However we do have a healthy population of these common frogs. I still hate to see them killed for nothing more then surviving to adulthood.

Since these are wild Frogs I can only hope they survive the cats, people, birds, snakes etc.. I do remove snakes when I smell or see them. I am not bad at catching what I want to catch. Then Guy and I drive them at least a mile away so we never see that particular snake again. Though snakes are pretty good about coming back......





I thought this shot of this Froglet swimming was a good shot to end this post with. I can spend a lot of time watching the Froglets! The birds who stop for a drink or a bath are so funny when they see the bigger Froglets! We get many fledglings here who have never yet seen a mature Frog or a Froglet! The first time seeing them is just a cute funny!

Thank you for coming by and checking out my photographs of this day of photographing the life in the pond!

Wild Frog Eating in the High Desert

Mrsroadrunner Photography | Wild Frog Eating in the High Desert




Meet this wild Frog Who had just ate something??



I come into this happening a little late so i did not actually see what this frog got itself to eat? As you can see it looks like along with something to eat it got some goobers too.



Keep in mind these wild creatures we have are used to me. That is I spend a lot of time watching them, critters are not stupid. They will get used to you watching them if you dont do anything more but watch them. Stressed out critters will lash out just like any other living thing, so leave them alone and you too will get their trust and you can get photographs without having to crop too!



As you can see the goal at this point for this fat frog is to get that goober out of its mouth! See how fat this frog is tell me this frog is a good hunter!



Our garden is a very active place! The frogs show up anywhere they are needed to help us with insect control. The frogs are welcomed to help!



The shot above the frog is using its "paw" (?), to get the goobers out of its mouth. I have observed these wild frogs eating and spitting out insects even haha! Must not have tasted good?? Insects do have their own defense mechanisms as secreting nasty chemicals that makes that insect taste nasty for instance.



This is a good shot above to how fat this frog is haha! When you hear me talking about the frogs on such places as twitter this is the species we have here the most, this is the Pacific Tree Frog which many folks think are not good to have around. I dont think this way since the frogs give me hours of entertainment just watching and listening to them.



This frog has gotten most of the goobers out by this shot above!



If one say wanted to physically capture such a thing for who knows what reasons, this would be the time! This frog has other things on its mind and is vulnerable. Though I do not see a point in picking up these frogs other then getting them out of a bad situation? Our hands have oils on them. These oils that all of us have, is not good for such things as frogs. Say you just ate some salty chips. Then you go to pick up one of these frogs, or any frog! That salt, as well as the oils on your hand goes straight to that poor frog!

Frogs skin is not real tough. Why frogs are having such a hard time these days. Then people feel the need to touch, pick up whatever for that photograph, or to put them in jars or whatever.... like I said these frogs are pretty common here at my place. How about the spotted frog if that is you get a chance to even see one! Endangered as they are. Kill a endangered species would not be cool just because a person is ignorant right? I ask you all to just think about what you are doing is all. Ying yang, I have to think as well....



All done!! The eating process takes time but as you can see this fat frog seams to have no problem catching something to eat! I am a tad bit bumbed I did not get to see what it was this frog caught to eat! Catching it with my camera or not at least I would have known haha

Thank you for coming by and seeing these photographs that I never shown anyone before! You are seeing these before Guy even gets to, I will show him these when he gets home from work. These photograph came from my archive of 2014 which I am still going through! As I am writting this several frogs are talking back and forth to each other! Warmer it gets the more frogs I hear, and see!

Swimming Frog In Oregon

Mrsroadrunner Photography | Swimming Frog In Oregon




Meet one of our frogs that more then likely was born and raised here on our small piece of property!





We bought the prefabricated ponds placing them within the natural ponds to save on water. Drought conditions and all, and well we wondered if such things as the frogs would still be able to live here in the natural and prefabricated ponds. No worries the frogs made the best of both worlds!



The frogs showed up here some years ago as they tend to do to any place that has a water source. I like the frogs so did not run them off or kill them. I watch the frogs as some folks watch their fish. Only thing that is different is, one should not name the frogs or get to attached. They are wild, coming and going as they see fit, not as we see fit.



We also do not bring the frogs here to the house, they came on their own. We placed the ponds in at first for the dogs to have a place to cool off in on the hot days here in the high desert. Then when we noticed creatures such as this species of frog moved in, we just left them be. The dogs still get in the water btw to cool themselves off! Frogs do not seam to care!



We found out many things were drawn to the water! Such things as butterflies, birds, toads, frogs, many kinds of bee's, slugs / snails (yuk), on and on find the water source refreshing. They , the wildlife have set up their own ecosystem here at our ponds. Dragonflies show up to eat the mosquito's in turn lay their eggs and mate here. The bee's (wasps, hornets), come to drink or get mud and take it to where ever they live. The birds show up and eat what they like etc.. I do remove the snakes who come, they tend to wipe out everything!! Throwing the balance off. We also have to keep peoples pets out of here. Cats, chickens, ducks are the main things we have had issues with. Of course being within the dogs kennel helps, however you would be amazed how slick people pets can be ha!



As you can see the prefabricated ponds we have, have not run off the frogs! This is one of many frogs we have here of all stages of development. It can get rather noisy here at night time and the reports I have gotten from neighbors is that they like the sounds.... Day time of course I dont even know if the neighbors hear the frogs? We sure do !



We estimated we have saved, well Guy is out right laughing about how much water we have saved by putting in these fabricated ponds! By the way our water bill has gone down as well! So for the what $100 a piece on these (?), we paid the two ponds have paid for themselves several times over! We had even found out we had a night time toad living here we never new we had! Who knows what else we have here at night time ?

Thank you for coming by and checking out this frog swimming!!

Tadpoles or Pollywogs FROGS

Mrsroadrunner Photography | Tadpoles or Pollywogs FROGS




Meet the Tadpoles of our pond! We have had the frogs / toads here at the house for some time. Mostly the common species Pacific Tree Frogs. Though when we put in prefabricated ponds to help with the water issue in our area, we found out we have toads here as well!



I really do not know what species these Tadpoles are? I do have a idea however...... We have two ponds in which we put these prefabricated ponds into the bigger natural ponds. Doing this I learned a little more of the differences of the Tadpoles we have here. These Tadpoles do NOT like to be seen, at least during the day! So I waited for them to come to the top to get their photograph. I like their eyes!! They are this bright yellow, orange color that remind me of the color of a sunrise/sunset! You can see a little of the eyes on the Tadpole that is coming up there on the right. These are also bigger then the other ponds Tadpoles.



This shot is from the other ponds, see the raspberry leaves?? This pond is where the Raspberries are planted. Draping over the water giving shade to that which live in the water. The creatures seam to like this? These photographs were taken on a day in July 2014. With these prefabricated ponds in place, we do still have water in them even though this is now December and these Tadpoles are adults by now.





We are back to the other pond! This one we call the smaller pond. Why? The natural pond is smaller then the other pond is why. This one does not have Raspberries planted , this one has cattails planted. I am always cutting back and puling out the raspberries who really do try to take over the world!! This ponds shade comes from a flowering fruit tree we have growing here in the High Desert of Oregon.

These prefabricated ponds have saved us gallons of water!! During spring , summer and some of fall we do add water to the natural part of the pond, though nothing like we used to !! Since the Tadpoles are doing fine the way we have the ponds in 2014. 2015 things may need to be tweaked, we will see?

This is also one big reason I do not use the agriculture water. That water is run off from the farms and ranches. The frogs, toads, lizards etc.. are having a hard enough time here in Oregon trying to find a environment where they can live. I have been advised not to have fish that will disrupt this environment for the amphibians . Our ponds are just not that big!





The shot above is from the "small pond".

Technical issues this morning has cut this blog post short.



Small Pond



Small pond



Small pond



Big pond with the smaller species of Tadpoles.



Small pond



Small pond



Thank you for coming by and seeing the photographs from this day in July 2014. I did photograph the development of the Tadpoles in 2014 through out their life. I am sure I will run across the photographs and perhaps make another blog post about them?

Have a great friday and a better weekend!!

Frogs Frogs and More Frogs

Frogs Frogs and More Frogs




When you have kids, sometimes we do not really understand how much our kids are paying attention to us. Here at the house we have several species of frogs here, the most common of these frogs is the above species. Pacific Tree Frogs are well adapted to many different environments. Fact is some folks feel they adapt to well!!



I like the frogs that have called our home there home for some years now. They eat bugs, I like the music they make and like to see the tadpoles develop into adults.

Today I want to express how thankful I am to my son for showing the humanity within to not allow a good dozen of these frogs freeze to death in our harsh winter conditions!





This species of frog moved in some eight years ago now? They have given me hours of entertainment!!





Not only as full frogs have they given entertainment. We also have a environment for the frogs to reproduce. Watching them as eggs, turn into tadpoles then into full fledged frogs.





When my son seen some frogs mixed into the soil as a repair man was here and had to do his work never thinking their would be frogs in the soil he just took out of the place he was working at, my son did notice!! I never thought the frogs would be in the area that was needing to be accessed by the repair man either!! I would have done something about it before hand!!

As soon as my son said the first word I new something was going on and went over to find very cold, hardly moving frogs that I spend so much of the warmer months watching!! I started picking them up out of the snow and putting them into my pockets to bring inside the house to my warm plant room where the fortunate frogs have found a way into and these frogs could warm up at and if they wanted to they could stay for the winter.

I am fortunate to have a son who paid attention!! My son does help me here at the house as Guy is off at work. Helps me with the ponds and the chores to make a environment the frogs and other critters like to be at!

I took no photographs of the cold frogs due to one, I was trying to get them warmed up! Two I had a repair man here who was trying to get his job done! One frog I am still a tad bit worried about for he was a tiny one!! That frogs and the others should really be fine. Frogs are a species of wildlife that have a way of surviving with just a little help......

My other frog photographs , this species and the others plus lizards,snakes,fish are all in this photo album if you want to take a look. I do understand phobias , of course my photography can be right up close and personal like with the critters I photograph.....

Western Toad Who Crossed My Path

Western Toad Who Crossed My Path http://www.mrsroadrunner.com/

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Frog on my Begonia

Photo by MrsRoadRunner . : photography... | Gather

Frog on my Begonia. I speak of my frogs quite a lot.
They come and go as they please, though a couple have been around all year.
I pick them up once in a while though watching and listening to them is what I really like to do.
I found this guy on my strawberry Begonia (the strawberry begonia rather went wild in my plant room).
My inside room is as close to nature as I can get it.