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Ponds & Aquatic Plants

The Bullfrog & The Bird

15 years ago

For those of you who think it's a myth that bullfrogs eat birds...thought I'd share this w/ you. This guy is The Terminator. He took down 7 starlings in one day on Wednesday and only ate one. Loves to give it the "ol college try", I guess!!! LOL

Enjoy!

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Comments (19)

jiju
15 years ago
OMG, I didn't know frogs ate birds. Or is this a "fixed photo??
ademink
Original Author
15 years ago
Nope...swear on my life...it's real! just took them about an hour ago!!!
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How many of you are frog enthusiasts as well?
Q
Comments (65)
Oh, I wish I had thought of GardenWeb four years ago! I rescued a batch of tadpoles from the spring draining of my above-ground swimming pool cover, thinking they'd morph out into frogs and go their merry way. Unfortunately (or delightfully, actually) the spring draining didn't happen until mid-summer that year and the tadpoles I saved got a late start. I had set up a tadpole pond for them on the picnic table, on a covered patio. A wisteria branch pulled over to the "pond" was to serve as their highway out. But, come October, I still had about two dozen tadpoles in various stages of metamorphosis and it got cold. Too cold for a container that held water only 2.5" deep. They can take extreme cold, but frozen solid? I had my doubts. My happy mistake was bringing them inside. You have NO idea how labor intensive it is to raise baby treefrogs until you do it. I ended up with five different terrariums set up, for tadpoles, froglets, and frogs; heat lamps; flightless fruitfly cultures in my bedroom; crickets over the heat vent in my bathroom; and it took 9 months for it to get warm enough and them to get large enough to release. They had to be fed at least twice a day and keeping up with the tank cleaning and their food supply made it a full-time job. In the end, some went to live at Zoo Atlanta and some to Fernbank Science Center, with much gratitude to the herpetologists at both places who were gracious and patient enough to answer all my over the course of their little froggie beginnings. Was it worth it? Well, I did it all over again the next year. LOL I had all the equipment and a lot more knowledge, so I wouldn't be totally lost during a second run. I didn't really plan to repeat the experience, though. I only wanted to see if a spoonful of eggs... EGGS, not tadpoles, would be viable, having been laid in chlorinated pool water. All 48 turned into tadpoles! They were the size of that exclamation point, but just large enough to get my heart. Again. My frogs were Cope's Gray Treefrogs. First year, I lost six out of 26. The next year, I didn't lose a single frog. Of the 48 I started with, most morphed out and were released before winter. I ended up raising the last dozen. That dozen now reside at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga (thanks to a dear friend and fellow froglet raiser who is a volunteer shark tank diver at the aquarium.) I just found this thread today and can't wait to read it all. I have a time crunch, so I could only read about half before I stopped to write this. Love frogs? I adore them. I'll post pictures from my adventure when I can find time to upload them from the little digital discs to my computer.
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Q
Comments (9)
"Could the frog be eating your fish?" Absolutely (tho' I agree with the others that there may be other reasons.) I had a huge frog last year who repeatedly ate some of my goldies (big ones too!) I first noticed a good sized goldie laying beside the pond. Was still alive so I returned it to the pond and said, "hmmmm." Next day, saw a flash of gold out of the pond. When I rounded the pond, I saw him, Mr. Frog with a goldie tail hanging out of his mouth! I chased him, but he jumped into the pond and submerged. A little later he was sitting on the edge of the pond with the goldie. Surprised me, but did keep the fish load in check!
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Comments (29)
This bird "Ole Blue" would change your mind if you saw him do what Hubby and I watched him do. We have a double stranded electric fence around the yard, you can see it in the pic. It makes a believer out of the dog and the horses when they touch it. Ole Blue stepped over the bottom strand and ducked under the top strand and didn't miss a beat getting to my pond. We watched him walk round and round the pond trying to figure out how to get to those beauties. I took a dozen pictures of him and we could walk within 10 ft of him before he would fly away. I had 90 lb test fishing line strung all around my pond and he still got my fish before I put up the net. I discovered his foot prints in the algae all around the shallow sides of my pond and realized he was flying into my pond and not flying into the yard and walking up to the pond. Thus the net. I also had a floating alligator at the time. This was the old pond before we re-built it. Glenda
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My frogs suddenly disappeared!!!
Q
Comments (39)
papnnana........I think nature waxes and wanes. I know I got water snakes in my little watergarden for a number of years, then nothing for the past 4-5 years. I try not to be happy about that! I've saved a couple frogs from the jaws of the snakes......but they need to eat too. It's hard to know who to cheer for! So.....you might be in one of those "not very many frogs around" years. Do you live in the city/suburbs/country? I live in the country and pretty close to a creek.....so I do wonder if that brings them closer. I never heard tree frogs until we had a couple little stocktank ponds......now there are a ton of them in the summer. I wonder if you have a pump in your pond? Sometimes I think they hear the water running and that attracts them. And of course, the kind of predators you have around can make a difference too. Let us know what kind of pond environment you have and maybe we can give you more suggestions. I found about 8 dead frogs in my inground 300 gallon stocktank one spring. I was soooo sad. I think I figured out that I was keeping it too warm all winter, with a deicer that was much too large for it. So now, I keep the pump running for as long as possible, and when it starts to get frozen (the pond and the pump), I put in a very small deicer.....just to keep a small hole open in the ice. I just keep my fingers crossed that there's enough oxygen in there to keep them alive until I can get the pump going again. This weekend it's supposed to be around 1 degree at night. :( What kind of frogs did you used to have? I have mostly tree frogs, then green, and once I had a couple bullfrogs who didn't stay around very long.............which was sorta okay with me. I love hearing their croaking......but I've heard they eat everything and everything, including small children. ;) I'm a big bird fan, so the last thing I want to see is a bullfrog eating a bird. But.......I guess that's just nature, but like I said, it's hard to know who to cheer for! Good luck with your frogs!
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annedickinson
15 years ago
How big is this frog. It may make Goliath and Godzilla look like tadpoles!!!

Anne
cliff_and_joann
15 years ago
oh my, great shot, Fantastic.

...we had a bird eating frog too...People don't believe frogs eat birds, you have proof alrighty! :)
We took our bird eating frog to the lake near our house...couldn't take him eating the birds. I have a pic of him with the bird hanging out of his mouth, but this one is better.
He was so fat and full after devouring one of my precious birds, I just walked up to him rolled him over and picked him up! We feed the birds and then he was eating them!

Here he is...Mikey, some day he's going to come back and attack me.

Glad you posted your fantastic photos, people didn't believe me when I told them this!

{{gwi:200284}}
lisa11310
15 years ago
I have seen it with my own eyes too! Big Bull Frog with one of my little Chipping Sparrows hanging out of it's mouth....Mrs. Bullfrog went for a ride down the road back to the bog where she came from!
pikecoe
15 years ago
Well, my frogs might just have to get a new name, they really are just babies. And I thought they were so big. I don't care if they don't ever get that big. Glenda
ademink
Original Author
15 years ago
Great pic! That's about the same size as mine JOann! I was so lucky to get this shot. The one w/ his tongue hanging out is classic. I didn't even know I got it until I loaded the pics - what a hoot!
destany
15 years ago
Ack! I never would have thought they could get a bird! That's a big frog lol!
youreit
15 years ago
Wow, GREAT pics, Andrea!! You always post awesome stuff.

Hope one of those 7 starlings wasn't Clarice, though! :D

Our bullie, Jeremiah, is currently camped out in the watercress in my creek, just downstream from where the birds come to bathe. Can't imagine what he's doing there. LOL

Brenda
comettose
15 years ago
My giant bullfrogs eat birds. Right now all of my bullfrogs are gone though. I think a bigger bird may have eaten them.

I chased a frog around to help release a bird but the bird was dead already (probably drowned), so I put the bird back into the frogs mouth, this time head first for easier swallowing. The big guy went off to the bushes to finish pushing the bird down. Later I saw him still in the bushes, so fat and lethargic, while he digested his meal over several days. Unfortunately when I was trying to get the bird out of his mouth I must have pinched something as part of his mouth became droopy. I named him Droopy and out of guilt, since he had been boss frog before I injured him in my stupidity, he was the recipient of several summers of 1000's of fat crickets, many meal worms, some earthworms, and beetles. He hung around for 3 more years and then last spring he came up from the cold pond, hung around for his spring meal of store bought crickets (along with my other frogs) and then he took off or was eaten by something. Haven't seen him since. Good ol' Droopy - he WAS a handsome fella, very green and mottled with a smooth bright yellow belly. Not all bullfrogs are attractive ya know,
magdaloonie
15 years ago
I'd been bemoaning my lack of frogs but now, I'm kinda glad. The birds have enough troubles!
Vanessa
amaqan
15 years ago
{{gwi:174140}}

I'm not to worried here :)
catherinet
15 years ago
There's all sorts of surprises in nature. A few winters ago, I looked outside and saw a dead cardinal on the ground (frozen stiff). I was going to go out later and bury it. But I looked out the window a few hours later, and there on a tree branch right in front of my window was a squirrel......eating the frozen cardinal, like it was corn on the cob!
I'm glad I don't have bull frogs in my ponds (knock on wood). They remind me of Jabba the Hutt.
maryo_nh
15 years ago
Our Bubba (one of our two big bull frogs) gets the occasional bird too. We had the same experience as comettose - went out to help a weakly struggling bird in the shallow end, we thought it was caught in something. And we were right... it was caught in Bubba's mouth... I briefly tried to get his mouth open by putting some pressure on the corners, but he was holding tight. I gave up when I realized the bird was beyond help.

We have pictures of a stand-off between Waldo (our medium bull frog) and Zith, our garted snake, when she was still small. DH intervened so we never found out who would have won.

:) Mary
toadster
15 years ago
Frogs & toads will eat anything that will fit into their mouth! Yes, even the other frogs, toads & tadpoles.

Great picture
buyorsell888
15 years ago
It is not a myth.

Our friend saw a bullfrog eat a duckling at the golfcourse he works at.

Bullfrogs are contributing to the demise of ground nesting birds in Hawaii and native frogs, toads and turtles in the Western USA. Sadly, Man has spread bullfrogs all over the planet when they are only native to the Eastern USA.
wile_e_coyote
15 years ago
Perhaps the frog knows that starlings are an invasive species and was just doing his part for the native birds and the environment?
buyorsell888
15 years ago
If only that were true!
bunky
15 years ago
Oh, I so enjoyed reading all of your responces. The only gratification you can get is knowing that there are snakes out there that LOVE bullfrogs. We watched a snake grab a huge bullfrog and devour it!

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