a refuge for tiny baby tree frogs
Each year, the number of native species that use my tiny urban pollinator meadow increases, with many beneficial insect species reproducing there or spending their entire life cycle there.
All of these were filmed in my tiny yard (Yalobusha Farms) in August, 2024.
Continue reading “Urban Ecological Oasis Videos, 2024”
I filmed a video of some of my breeder Southern Toads (A. terrestis) eating earthworms in one of the four open-top terrariums.
Most of the diet (90%+) is fruit flies and fruit fly maggots that live on the pile of decomposing fruit peels in their terrariums.
Continue reading “Southern Toads (A. terrestris) Eating Earthworms”
In the spring of 2023, I purchased 200 Southern Toad (Bufo terrestris) tadpoles from a breeder for the purpose of restoring the local wild toad population.
I raised the tadpoles in the patio breeding tanks used by my neighborhood’s tree frogs.
I transferred the tiny toadlets to one of four plastic barrel bottoms that had been set up as open-top terrarium habitats, also located on my patio.
Continue reading “Southern Toad (Anaxyrus terrestris) Breeders”
Here is a video of tadpoles swimming in the first pond in its third month of existence.
I incorrectly identified these as tree frog tadpoles, which I now know to be smaller.
Based on countless observations over the past four years, I am fairly certain that the tadpoles in this video are those of the common Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans), the dominate amphibian species of most freshwater biomes in the U.S. and elsewhere.