.....sigh.....I wish I had an Oscar Meyer tadpole......

I did have a big old fat toad who lived in the front bed, under a rock I had lined the bed with. BUt, I haven't seen him in ages. But, I love the toads.....

Do the birds eat toads once they become toads?

Susan

I don't know if birds eat toads. Maybe Leaper knows. I just assumed they would try, because the tiny baby toads look like bugs to me when I first see them hopping away. Of course the birds are closer and can maybe distinguish that sort of thing better than I can. If the birds don't eat some of them, what happens to all of them? I know they can't possibly all survive to adulthood in my yard. Maybe some of them will hitchhike to your place, Susan.

Do you have a water feature in your yard? Didn't seem to take long for the toad moms and dads to find mine and start making babies this spring.

Years ago we had a major infestation of slugs. I tried all the usual remedies, with little success. So my DH imported some toads. Next year almost no slug damage. The toads persisted for years. I don't know how, since we don't have any water around here. Maybe they just live a long time. They used to climb into my flower pots and hide in the potting soil. You would go to scratch in some fertilizer and find yourself eye to eye with a rudely awakened toad. Gives a body a start that's for sure.

I have toads and turtles living in my garden, and eating tomatoes to obtain the water, since my little wildlife pond has dried up. Think I am going to put a large shallow pan of water in a shady corner of the veggie garden and hope they will get the water there instead of from the tomatoes.

I don't know which birds eat small toads, but my son rescued a good-sized frog from one of the chickens a couple of days ago. She was running around with it in her mouth while all the other hens chased her. I think snakes and other creatures do eat small toads and frogs.

Since all the stock tanks around here are drying up or have already dried up due to the drought, I've been having lots of great blue herons and white cattle egrets coming to my waterlily pond to hunt for food.

We don't have as many aquatic-type frogs and toads as usual, but seem to have a bumper crop of tree frogs this year. I love listening to them at night. Sometimes I find them in my large container plantings, and sometimes they come and stick to the windows, although I don't know why. I wonder if they are waiting for a bug to try to fly by?

Earlier this week we had a frog swimming around and around in circles in the dogs' plastic wading pool. The dogs didn't even seem to notice him. Water is getting really scarce, and I feel sorry for all the critters who need it.

Reptiles/amphibians are more of a toad predator than birds are. It depends on the species of toad and species of bird. Some species have a nasty secretion when attacked and it's a powerful deterrent to predation. We have huge numbers of toadlets too. They disperse to surrounding areas pretty quickly. I saw a beautiful brick red toadlet, the size of a pea. Hope he stays around, he was so pretty!
Leaper

Ooooohhhhh, how interesting Leaper. Do you know the species? Isn't wildlife just utterly fascinating? I'm not particularly fond of poisonous snakes showing up in my garden, but I love the little garden snakes, spiders, and other critters. I live in the city limits close to downtown OKC, and the other night, my daughter went to the store and when she got back it was dark, and she spotted a possum in the carport! She wouldn't go cart the trash can to the curb because she was afraid of it. Do they bother humans much?

I know why we see so many in the urban areas now; because we have stolen their habitat from them. Builders just cut down the wooded areas to construct houses, with no consideration for the wildlife there.

Susan

Susan, I live smack dab in the middle of Stillwater - not quite as urban as OKC, but I'm still amazed at all the wildlife that comes to my yard. I just finished about a 3-week battle with a family of raccoons in my attic. Very nerve-wracking. I finally hired a trapper, but by then I think they were about ready to move out anyway, and just packed up and left one night, right past all the traps. I have possums, too, I'm pretty sure. I think they're like most every other kind of wildlife - they're more afraid of you than you are of them - all except the squirrels, of course. They're not afraid of anything.

Susan,
They are Fowlers toads. Lots of color variation in the ones that share my yard. They are beautiful creatures. It makes me so angry to see all the land being swallowed up for strip malls and even more homes just to pad someone's pocket. They just clear cut a huge area in my area for yet more development. It's sickening.
I think we have both raccoons and opossums that come around at night. Most opossums will run first, then play dead if confronted, fighting only if necessary. Smarter than some humans I'm thinking :)
Leaper

Yeah, it is disturbing to say the least. I lived in Massachusetts for about a year and a half. I was amazed at how developers are restricted to only removing enough trees to build a house. They aren't allowed to clear cut areas at all. Now, with as few a trees as Oklahoma has in the urban areas, why are they allowed to continue this practice? Surely they can work around a treed area with less problems than having to remove them all???? Mass. is much more environmentally cautious than Oklahoma is. They won't even allow billboards on their highways.

Yeah, she caught him in her headlights and he froze. Then she was afraid to get out of her car. Finally, she did, and ran to the porch, banging on the door, couldn't get to her key fast enough! LOL

Susan

Susan,

In Fort Worth we had a possum who liked to come up on the front porch and eat the cat's food. If you walked out the door while he was on the porch, he (or she?) would open his/her mouth and hiss, showing off all these teeth. It was like a game of chicken. It would stand and hiss and show its teeth and I would stand and look at it and say something like "Go Away!" I always backed down first, and went inside and waited a minute for it to go away. If I walked back out before it had time to get away, it would fall to the ground and 'play possum'. I've never heard of a possum attacking people, though, but they will attack small pets if they want that pet's food.

Dawn