Monday, April 26, 2010

Critters in the Yard

The frogs have returned to our little pool of standing water. I love the location since it has a rock large enough for me to lay down on right at its edge. This lets me take up residence and wait for the frogs to surface after they jump in when I get into place. This frog eye photo is of a frog about the size of my thumb from about five inches away. I love frog eyeballs and their little flecks of gold.

Here's the same frog from the photo above from further away as I was slowly creeping the camera closer. Sorry buddy, but that leaf isn't hiding you.

This is a different frog that didn't stay still long enough for me to get extra close. I think he felt particularly exposed and decided to head for deeper water. I love how the bubbles cling to them.

I found a garter snake near the house and Michelle captured it for re-location to the asparagus patch. The asparagus patch is chock full of slugs which loved eating the asparagus under its layer of leaf mulch. Mental note for next year, pull back the leaf mulch in the spring. Now that we've pushed the mulch away from the asparagus it isn't being attacked by the slugs, and hopefully this little guy chowed down on a couple too.

We have a lot of snakes in our yard, though more often than not I hear them rather than see them. We have lots of snake habitat that Michelle has created, and being good snake habitat they can retreat into it and go unseen. You can still hear them slide away as you approach though. Now if only they would eat more slugs!

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