I live in central Indiana. I was very surprised last week to hear a couple toads in the weeds. A few days later they showed up in the stocktank ponds. Unfortunately, I haven't seen them in the past couple of days, as the temps have dropped into the upper 30's. I hope they're staying warm. I did hear a few tree frogs last week in the woods too.

We had a cat do that to a lizard. The girls had found the little lizard out side and being a stern disciplinarian, I saw no reason they could not keep it as a pet. One day I came into the family room and saw the cat playing with the lizard. When I tried to take the lizard away from the cat, she made one quick swipe at the lizard and split its under belly from the throat to the stomach. Fortunately it was not the girl's but another that had gotten into the house.

I don't have a good answer. I had the same experience. A frog hopped onto the net. He hopped around for about 10 minutes before I lifted the edge enough to roll him off. He looked like he was on a trampoline - he did flips. I wished I'd had a camera - it would have made a great video. I found that if I raised the edge enough that the frogs didn't get on it then the birds went under it. After spending time getting a little bird unstuck I decided to remove the net. I was also afraid that if I had the netting all the way to the ground, the smaller frogs would try to go through and get stuck. If the heron shows up again, I will try the fishing line approach. As for all the leaves ending up in the pond in the fall, I just keep netting them out. I resign myself to having tinted water from the leaves. But the dragonfly larvae LOVE all the stuff on the bottom of the pond. When I clean out the pond in the spring I have to take the larvae out of the muck/leaves and put them back in the pond. sam

Great use of light Mct!!! Most of the time we get better photos with flat light because our simple minded cameras cant handle the range of light, but you have some great examples to the contrary ... and froggy is awesome. Wayne