Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Bugs in the Backyard

Yesterday, the Wookie and I spent some time in his backyard checking out the health of the frog pond. He had been excited earlier in the spring to discover a snapping turtle which neither of us had seen last year. It (or one just like it) had been there the year before. The Wookie was going to remove the remnants of a little pier but having discovered the turtle likes to sun itself there, decided to leave it.
Of course, there are a ton of frogs:
some snails:
I almost caught this little guy(gal?) and when it hopped away from me, it still had an inch of tail left. Not quite a tadpole anymore, but not quite a frog.
The dragonflies and darners were out as well, but harder to photograph with a digital camera. Click on the pic and look to the right.
Sometimes you can find a little cocoon woven between leaves of the bulrushes. I took this one apart:


Inside a mama spider, a worm for a snack, and I don't know what else as I grossed myself out:

I left the spider and her snack in some bushes, so she'll repair the damage and get back to business.

More frogs:



There are at least three types of frogs living in and around the pond, several species of dragonfly, snails, spiders, and other assorted bugs. And several large goldfish. It was high noon and getting very hot so the fish were staying away from the surface of the pond. I also caught sight of a couple of toe-biters. I'll go back with my net soon so I can catch one and take some pics. They are very scary looking things and can inflict a rather painful bite.

S.

10 comments:

Bubbie said...

Toe-biters???

Lisa Emrich said...

Ditto Bubbie. ??

Unknown said...

Giant Water Bugs....sometimes called Water Scorpions.....they nag out in the muck at the bottom of ponds and if someone steps on or too near 'em......well....as the name implies...

S.

Unknown said...

"hang out", not nag out.....

S.

mdmhvonpa said...

Wow ... nice amphibian population! Any mud-puppies?

Denver Refashionista said...

You always seem to be having fun. I wish I knew how to post the pictures so nicely with the text. Mine seem to get strange...

harkoo said...

What lovely photographs--will you be posting on all the bees that got loose up your way this week? Made my news in Maine....

Unknown said...

Pa,
Haven't seen any mudpuppies here....we do have some smaller shrimp type creatures from time to time but no crayfish.

DR,
If I'm not having fun, I'm devising a way to have fun. As for the pictures, it took a little practice and trial and error to figure out how to post them....the trick is to post all the pictures then add copy.

Harkoo,
Afraid the bees were in the next province over....I had to laugh when our news director told me about it as there's nothing more pathetic than a wet bee (and it was raining). For those not in the know, last week a transport truck loaded with 12 million (yes, million) honeybees tipped over and the bees got out of the truck. The weather kept them fairly close to the accident scene however so they were easily rounded up by 6 bee-wranglers. The truck was on its way back to Ontario after having taken the bees to Northern New Brunswick to pollinate the blueberry fields. Until I wrote a recent post on Colony collapse Disorder I was unaware at how prevalent the practice is of taking bees around to different parts of the country.

S.

harkoo said...

Oh dear--that says alot about our news here--oops--they presented the bee mishap as a present calamity-ongoing. I need to get a map to better visualize Canadian geography-have only been to Quebec City and Montreal--so beautiful there....Joyce

Nervus Rex said...

I want to see pics of the water scorpions! They're new to me...