frogs
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One Froggy Morning
Green-Wood’s Valley Water, filled with tadpoles earlier in the spring, is now full of young Bull Frogs (Rana catesbeiana). At least, that’s what I think they are. The crowd including this frogpole, not yet completely transformed into an adult.The lily pads spluttered as these little ones hopped, skipped, and splashed away, sometimes hitting several pads…
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Frog, Turtle, ‘Gator
Big Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus).Bigger, much bigger: Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina). Possible looking for a place to exit the water and lay eggs (you need another reason to enforce the leash law in our parks?). Judging by the shell, I’d say I’ve seen this giant before. Also, even enormous Snappers start small; here’s a baby I…
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Green-Wood Harvest
Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa).Three different hickories, genus Carya. Bitternut, Mockernut, Shagbark? Bulllfrog tadpoles (Rana catesbeiana) were still to be seen swimming. A single Common Green Darner was flying. There was also a bee of some kind passing by. Palm Warbler (Dendroica palmarum).A field of Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra): these were thudderdudduding down in the wind;…
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Field Trip: Cape May
Rothko sunrise on the big beach at Wildwood Crest on the Cape May peninsula, hanging down from New Jersey’s southeastern end like an appendix. I was on the beach about 50 minutes before sunrise, with a long row of mostly-empty-in-the-off-season motels behind me, and the Sanderlings already working the edge of the waves in the…
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Froggy
Valley Water in Green-Wood is swarming with tadpoles right now. Here’s one of many hundreds popping up for a gulp of air. They were zooming up and then down into the murk.This rock, however, provided a nice docking area for them. Not sure if there is more than one species here or some are just…
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Frog Weather
An enormous Bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) in the Lullwater.Nonchalant as a dozen people file by five feet away.
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Staten Island’s Frog
We interrupt this blog to remind you that while I sometimes range far and wide (Iceland, New Mexico, Nantucket, etc.) my heart remains right here in the great outdoors of the urban conglomeration that is New York City. Nature, as I like to say almost daily, is all around us, even in the city. Case…
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Frog and toad
Out of town recently, I ran into a couple of amphibians I don’t see often. This is the northern leopard frog, Rana pipiens, seen amidst its bullish and greeny brethren along the side of a road in Haverhill, MA. UPDATE 6/14: see the comments for discussion of this frog, which is probably a green frog…
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Frogs
Some frogs from a recent trip to the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border: In a swimming pool. The clarity of the water allowed us to watch this green frog swim: it’s all in the meaty back legs, the forelimbs streamlined against the body. Two more green frogs in a small man-made pond. Up to five frogs have…
Backyard and Beyond 