Toad watching

[Shirley U Geste]

One of the things I like to do at night before I go to bed is go out in the yard and watch the toads feeding.  Yeah, I am a very cheap date. 

The yard light is right over the critter garden and they hop in there at night to catch bugs.

Had seen momma toad last night with a couple of baby toads so I took my camera out tonight and found one right by my back door and got some pics.  He/she is about the size of a silver dollar.  

[val2525]

Cute little thing. I don't watch toads, but I used to like watching the fireflies when I lived in Dallas. My dog used to like to try to catch them. He never did catch any, but it was a hoot to watch. He wasn't so thrilled about toads.

One night, he and the cat (not current cat) were both staring intently at the bottom of the bathroom cabinet. I went to look, and there was a toad there. I startled the toad apparently because he hopped a couple of times and scared the cwap out of the cat AND the dog (all 60 lbs of him). They ran into the living room. After I quit laughing I got a glass from the kitchen and caught the toad and put him outside. The dog and cat gave the cabinet a wide berth for the rest of the night.

Are you going to try and get a shot of the baby toads? Toadlets?

[zoesam]

Great pics! They're so cute.

I miss fireflies so much! I got so excited when I was in NM at a hot springs last year & I kept seeing what I thought were fireflies. I DO know better LOL - they were embers from the kiva fireplace in the private soaking tubs.

[Deleted]

Awww. What a cute little thing. And too funny about the dog and the cat being afraid of one.

[allikat]

We have a big toad about the size of a baseball that spends the night on our porch, he arrives when the porch light comes on to signal the free bug buffet has opened and doesn't leave until morning.

[Deleted]

That little thing is just adorable!

[Shirley U Geste]

That is one of the babies Val.

Mom toad is huge, about 4" across. She has other little ones from earlier in the season that are about half her size now and these latest little ones that are about 1.5" across. She seems to keep them hidden when they are really small so they won't get eaten by other critters.

The lizards rule the garden during the day in the heat and eat the bugs. Once it's dusk and cooler the toads come out to feed. You can see the plants moving and once in awhile get glimpses of them in there. It kind of reminds me of LOST when the creature was making all the trees in the forest move but you couldn't see what was there.

They hop right by my back door on their way to the garden and that's where I saw this little fella. He was kind of surprised to have his pic taken but then just kept going to the garden to get his share of the bugs.

I wish we had fireflies Zoe, that would make a nice addition to the garden menagerie. But I do get bats that fly in from caves in the foothills to circle the light and feed. I like to hear their squeaky little sounds as they fly around.

[Deleted]

Oh Shirley...toads. Can I say I hated toads with a passion. My rottie Lou LOVED the toads and searched for them in the yard as play toys. He NEVER hurt them he just loved playing with them. Damn I miss my boy. One time he came in from outside and got on the couch. So far status quo. I then noticed all the cats watching him with their eyes as wide as saucers. Turns out my wonderful dork boy has snuck a toad in and he would let it go. It would hop across the couch, he'd pick it up in his mouth then put it back by him and watch it hop away again. He was so sad when I told him he had to put it back outside. Yes I told him to get it then made him take it outside and drop it.

One day he had two of them in his mouth. He LOVED toads. He would find them all the time....from the ones no bigger than a dime to the ones bigger than your fist.

We have more freaken toads out at the country home than I can count. They always make me think of Lou now and how much he loved them.

Here's a pic of one of the toads he befriended and another of yet another one he wanted/tried to sneak by me into the house. Yes it is night. Yes I do have a plastic bag over my hand so it didn't pee on me. Yes this was one bigger than my fist.

You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.

[Shirley U Geste]

Lou sounds like he was a wonderful dog Shawn, sorry about your loss.

Luckily I have no outside animals so no worries about them being brought into the house. I like them in the yard, but would not want them hopping around inside.

[jellybeanscloset412]

We are full of frogs and toads. We have a pool that we didn't open and it is now a frog resort. I think my kids and dog enjoy the frogs more than the pool anyway!

[Deleted]

I love all kinds of nature and think that toads are super cool.  Harley loved the story about your Rottie. 

And Shirley you are such a hoot, i can see you out at night with your flashlight and your Sonic shake watching the toads.

Makes me smil

[sunsetpainter]

Harley, I'm so sorry about Lou. He sounds like a wonderful dog. My little Jack Russell mix is a toad freak too. Only she likes to kill them, but then gets all frothy at the mouth. Blech!

[Deleted]

Don't mean to put a damper on the dog/toad relationship, but here in Florida we have to be very watchful to not let the dogs near the toads, especially the Bufo toad/frog as it is deadly to dogs. There are also other toads/frogs that emit a nasty liquid that will make your dogs foam at the mouth and make them sick, but not kill them. Just an FYI, as I know we all love our pets like kids!:thumbup:

[Deleted]

I love toads! We have so many outside that come out in the evening. The girls and I would toad hunt with a bucket. They'd all come inside straight to the tub and the girls would play with them. I know it's kind of gross, but I did wash it out after they went back home. They'd release them back in the garden. I think around 75 was the most we caught in one night.

We even had a toad crossing sign, that we made, in our gravel drive so people would slow down when coming through. Flat toads meant lots of tears.

We were hunting them one night and I found this huge bullfrog in my garden. I don't know how he got there because the nearest lake is about 3/4 of a mile. Scared the crap out of me. We took him to the lake so he wouldn't eat the toads. Snakes get relocated as well.

[zoesam]

Love the story about Lou & such fun pictures! Thanks for sharing! My namesake, Zoe, was a hunting dog. Sighthounds are bred to give chase & hunt, so I'd always considered myself VERY luck (cuz y'all know how I feel about dead animals), that the only things she ever stalked & killed were an Iris & a fly. I could deal with both of those.

When we lived in MN one winter, Zoe kept playing with this piece of frozen landscape bark. She wouldn't stop & it was just ridiculously interesting to her. She would throw it up in the air & catch it & just would not leave it alone. When I called her in one day, she brought it in the garage & I took it away from her, so she didn't bring it in the house. I left it laying on the work table & had mentioned to my husband, that she was ridiculously interested in this piece of bark. Well, the next AM, my DH informed me that it was not a piece of landscape bark, but a frozen toad LOL. NO WONDER she was so interested! She was not being sweet like Lou though. She wanted it dead. I guess she didn't realize that it already was.

eta: Dantes, I've never seen them around here, but when I go to the hot springs near Canon, they like to jump into the hot spring!  

[Deleted]

Lou was the best dog ever and my true heart dog. He's been dead now for a year and a half and I am still not over losing him. Rotties are a working breed and have very high prey drive. Lou never got that memo and LOVED every animal he met in the yard. I think he was empathic because when our gsd Boppy..who we had to pts...would kill anything that moved he would squeal and whine and try to get me to "fix" whatever creature she had caught.

He tried to teach little Tot how to play with the toads and while little Tot has no prey drive either she accidentally killed a little toad when she picked it up. OMG you would have thought Lou's world was going to end.

He literally dog crawled one day across the yard to lick a little itty baby bunny. His freaken tongue was bigger than the bunny. He came and whined and went crazy one time when he found a half dead little baby bird that had fallen out of a nest and was unconsolable when I couldn't do anything for it. He was a giant monster of a rottie WAY out of standard height wise....the first thing anyone ever said when they say him was...that's the biggest effen rottie I've ever seen....and he had the heart of a warrior encased in gold.

Rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks...he could never figure out why when he trotted up to them with the happy look on his face they would run away. I think that's way he loved the toads so much as he could actually find them and play when them.

>>>Sorry to take this so off your topic Shirley but it was nice to share a little bit about my big ole boy.

And yes in some areas toads are poisonous. Actually all toads do have a small amount of toxins in their system but the toads around here unless a dog were to eat a whole bunch of them are not toxic. Heck we don't even have poisonous snakes.

Out at the country home before we tore out the old concrete pool there were insane amounts of frogs too. Now we'll see the occasional little frog as well. Here's one that was on the side of the house. Todd's finger is next to it so you can see how dang tiny it is.

[Shirley U Geste]

No worries Shawn, I love to hear all the critter stories.

Sounds like Lou had a very sensitive soul, you were blessed with a wonderful fur friend.

[Deleted]

Aw, Shawn. Your Lou stories are bringing me to tears. What a sweet dog!

[Deleted]

We had a giant toad last year in our back yard. I called it Jabba. almost every night he would hop up the steps onto the deck and sit by the door to eat bugs from the porch light. Haven't seen him this year but do have a few of his smaller progeny hopping around.

Is it weird to miss a toad? LOL

[val2525]

LOL @ "Jobba"!