The Wildlife Is Vanishing

Yes, true worldwide, but I'm thinking of the local ones.  And specifically my yard.  

I keep a mostly organic yard (OK, I spray individual poison ivy plants).  But I do things to help the birds and bees and other stuff thrive.  Half my backyard is left semi-wild.  Lots of small trees for bird-nesting.  I have black oil sunflower seed in one feeder for most songbirds, 2 thistle seed feeders for the purple and gold finches, and 2 nectar feeders for the hummingbirds.

I have 5'x3'pond for frogs.  With plants and debris at the bottom to support aquatic insects.  I have butterfly bushes, pollinator plants, and plants that insect larvae can develop on.  

I used to see some possums and raccoons at night.  I used to hear thousands of Spring Peeper frogs in the swamp across the street in the Spring.

But that has been changing.  I noticed a few years ago that the Swamp was quiet; no Spring Peepers calling in the thousands.  I used to see deer in my front yard and the neighbors in snow prints and visually.  I used to see snow prints of other various critters.

When I moved here 37 years ago, there were no cardinals, finches, etc.  But when I set up feeders, I got up to 6 pairs of cardinals, a bunch of purple finches, a dozen goldfinches, and various smaller birds (titmice, wrens, woodpeckers, etc).  Sometimes, the sunflower seed feeder was mobbed by starlings (I did tend to chase them away as they would just empty the feeder in a few hours, leaving nothing for the other birds and the stuff is somewhat expensive).   I haven't seen it mobbed in a few years.

I think we are in trouble.  If my generally organic semi-wild yard can't support cardinals, finches, and other small birds with good food, something is going very wrong.  If there are no frogs in the pond, something is very wrong.  If the deer (those damned landscape-eaters) are becoming more rarely seen,  something is very wrong.  

My hummingbirds haven't come back this year.  I haven't seen a single butterfly.  I haven't seen a possum on the deck at night.  I haven't seen many bees (Honey or Bumble) and it has been warm enough for a month.  I haven't seen any hornets (not that I love them).  But still, that is not a good sign.

Something is going bad, and I think we are causing all this.  As Pogo said "We have met the enemy and it is us".  

 

Frogs

Today is all about frogs.   Where have they all gone?

I used to be bothered by Spring Peepers.  I live across a street from a wetlands area and the Spring was filled with their calls.  That was OK.  They were so collectively constant, it was just background noise.  But I have a small 5' pond just outside the bedroom window.

And they would individually croak, which drove me nuts at night!  I have acoustic ceiling tiles in the bedroom window to dampen the noise.  But last year, I realized I wasn't hearing any frogs.  They are all gone.  A whole swamp of them vanished!

I am baffled.  My neighbor who's yard borders the swamp, doesn't know why they vanished either.  Ive read about frog-diseases wiping them out sort of like beehive diseases and parasites.  Or it is climate change.  Or pollution.  

I still have regular green frogs (Leopards?). in my pond.  They don't bother me.  I've even grown some.

Fed them and put a log in the tub so they could climb out.  If we are losing some, I want to help the others...

Marley and Lori sometimes catch one.  But for everyone they catch and play with, 19 probably survive.  Between the pond and the creek-like drainage easement and the swamp, they have lots of good places to exist.

But I think we are "extincting" too many small ignored animals...

Tadpoles

I am sometimes a bit harsh with varmints that move into my yard.  The squirrels got at my tomatoes and beans.  The groundhog eats my flowers.  The deer eat the hostas and Caladiums in the front yard.  They are NOT my loved wild animals.

There is a whole wetland and swamp and running water area across the street.  There are oak trees and stuff wild animals like to eat.  They don't need to bother me.

What they don't NEED to eat are my plants.  So I fight back a bit.  I built an entire enclose around my garden beds.  I built a tall fence 30 years ago.  The deer don't jump it.  But that doesn't stop the rabbits and groundhogs. 

The Mews take care of the rabbits.  But they can't handle a groundhog (aka woodchuck or whistle-pig).  But I can. Those normally eat lawn clover, but they sometimes decide to eat all the flowers. 

That's their end.  A hav-a-hart live cage trap is great with melon slices.  They love melons. 

I have a large tub of water that the cage fits into.   One "blub" and they go to "groundhog beyond".  If I knew a faster way, I would use it.  I hate them.  I once caught a new brood outside the den and pitchforked them!  Mom groundhog hissed at me, but I got her later.

So here is the tub.

I'm also growing aquarium plants in it.  But a frog decided to lay eggs.

Most tadpoles will not survive.  Well, think of it.  If they did, my yard would be ankle deep in frogs!  So I was curious about whether my aquarium fish would eat them (free food of high quality).

They attacked like piranha!  That was enlightening...  So I also put several into my 2 Betta tanks (one betta per tank).  One ate them and the other ignored them.  Nature is weird...

The ones in the tank where that betta didn't et them grew fast.  Betta food aggrees with them.  Today, I cleaned the tanks (monthly requirement as they have to pee in the water they live in in small tanks). 

So I netted the large tadpole in the one tank and returned them to the outdoor tub.  You wnt to know how Nature works?  They will eat their smaller siblings.  So I netted out a lot of the smaller ones.  No great favor to them.  They will be aquarium fish food.

 I watch Nature shows a lot.  Everything is eaten by something else without mercy.  Usually alive, and often ripped apart into pieces.  So I don't feel bad about feeding tadpoles to my aquarium fish or tossing a few lucky large-grown tadpoles to eat their siblings.  That's how all animals survive. 

I will have to bury the drowned groundhog though.  Otherwise the vultures find it and that IS rather gruesome.  But I bury them near specimen trees and that feeds THEM, so that is good. 

The circle of life goes on...

BTW "baby fish", once a tiny pair of eyes in the aquarium hiding in the live plants, the only survivor of a platy, is full size now.  It is my favorite for having survived all the others that wanted to eat it like a tadpole.  Some get lucky...

Pre-Frog

My tadpoles have legs!  But they still have tails too, so they aren't ready to hop onto the surface (according to everything I read).  But I will put  small piece of wood in the tank for them to use when they are ready.

There were originally 7 tiny tadpoles.  I used pond water in the tank (to seem natural to them) and added plants and algae, and algae wafers.  Changed the water once a month (good for my bettas so assume good for tadpoles).

There are only 5 left.  Don't know what happened to the 2.  At least I never saw bodies.  Fed them ground spinach to help.

There is a small bubbler tube in the tank.  Barely moves the water, but I think it adds enough oxygen by changing the surface.  Not enough water movement to bother them AFAICT.

But they have been slow in developing.  I'm sure they should have been full-grown frogs by now in the pond.

But there is the dilemma.  Would any of them survived among the already full-grown frogs in the 5' diameter pond?  Frogs are cannibalistic.  I've probally kept them alive longer than they normally would, but mayb one would have grown to frogdom.

And what do I do with them now?  None of these are prepared to hibernate over Winter at so undeveloped a stage of growth.  I have an unused 20 gallon long aquarium I could keep them in over Winter, but what would I feed them?  Petsmart doesn't sell frog food last I checked (and I asked).

How did my Summer curiosity about watching a few chosen tadpoles develop turn into an ethical problem about the lives of a few wanna-be not-quite-yet frogs?

Topics

You know how sometimes you want to write, but can't think of what to write about?  Me too.  That's why sometimes I go on about something badly and then delete it a day later.

So I sat down a few minutes ago and decided to just scribble out some things going on around me, the house, and the yard.  I hit a dozen immediately!  Some days are like that.

1.  Frogs
2.  Mosquitoes
3.  Crocuses
4.  Deer Ate Shrub
5.  Car Battery
6.  Snowblower Snow Wouldn't Melt
7.  Enclosed Garden
8.  Tomato Grafting
9.  Dad
10. Smoking/Not Smoking
11. Covered Plant Rack
12. Wine

So, how about "frogs"?  Now, I generally LIKE frogs.  None of them around here are poisonous, they eat mostly bad insects, they are impressively weird, and they mostly don't bother me.


Except Spring Peepers.  For a month each year around now, they all start a "chirping contest".  And since there are wetlands across the street (used to be a full-fledged swamp) they are a biblical multitude!  10,000 chirping Spring Peepers can be distracting.  The chirps are of a sound frequency that comes right through windows and walls.  Well, no wonder at THAT, they evolved their sound to penetrate woodsy swamps. 



I can live with that; there are so many of them that the sound is constant.  Its the 5 or so of them that find my small 4'x6' lily pond that drive me NUTS!  The pond is only 20' from my bedroom window, and with only a few of them, the chirping comes and goes.  I can't sleep when they chirp randomly.

It was so bad when I worked, that I would sometimes have to go out at night, find the little devils with a flashlight, and stomp on them just to get some sleep.  And its not like I didn't try passive frog-friendly ideas first.  I put acoustical ceiling tiles covering the inside of my bedroom window.  It didn't work!  Well, it helped some, but not enough.

Even after retirement, when I can sleep later to make up for the disturbance, it is still aggravating.  The past 5 years, I have covered the pond with loose-woven garden cloth.  That works.  If they can't get to the water, they can't mate, so they don't chirp.

I usually notice them first as I go to bed and it is really too late to do the covering thing that night.  But this year, today, I caught them in the act.  It was suddenly very warm today (75F at 4 PM), s I had some windows open.  It was nice and quiet. 

Until...  At precisely 5:30 PM, I heard a chirp in the wetland.  And 2 seconds later, I heard 10,000!!!  They ALL started immediately when the very first one did.  I was astonished.  At least I have tomorrow to cover the pond.  The pond doesn't seem to warm up as fast as the open wetland do, so there is a lag.

Tomorrow, I will take out the garden cloth and cover the pond and ruin the mating possibilities of the several Spring Peepers who chose my pond as their "Dream Seduction Site".  Well, they are either the dumbest Spring Peepers and deserve not to mate, or they are the smartest Spring Peepers (choosing a less-competitive location) and just had the bad luck to annoy ME!  Either way, I doubt I am affecting the long-term survival of Spring Peepers...

And if I am?  Well, MY sleep comes first.  Being Top Of The Food Chain has its benefits.

Topics 2-12 to come later, maybe in no particular order, and interrupted by new topics as they come to mind.

Finished The Pond

Not much to show.  My hands got too muddy to take many pictures!

Basically, I had a dozen pots that were fallen over in the pond with the Sweet Flag leaves growing curved toward the light.  I had a large pot of mixed clay and pea gravel to refill smaller pots, broken terra cotta and golf ball sized stones for weight in the bottoms, and a new bag of pea gravel to cover the soil on the tops.

I found the corner of the sunken patio a convenient height to do messy work...

Here is a stage in the procedure.  The 2 pots on the right have had the stones put in the bottom, some clay/gravel soil added, then rooted portion from the original pots.  I am about to add new pea gravel on top and move them to the pond.

This is the small pond with Sweet Flag around the ledge.  There are 5 hardy waterlilies in the deeper center portion and several on the outer ledge.  The lilies on the ledge (and half of the Sweet Flag) will be moved to the larger pond as soon as I replace the damaged lining.

I have a small water pump for the small pond.  After it has circulated the water and filtered out the silt for a few days, I will add a few small goldfish.

At least I know now that I simply MUST lift all the pots each Spring and cut back the roots.  And next year I will cover it with plastic window screen instead of clear plastic sheet so the pond can breathe but the Spring Peepers can't mate!

The Annual Spring Peeper War

I live across the street from a slight swamp.  In the late Winter, the Spring Peepers call constantly.  They started yesterday.  That's OK, because there are thousands of them and the sound is a sort of "white noise" a 100 yards away and on the far side of the house from my bedroom.

What is NOT OK is the dozen or so Spring Peepers that are attracted to the small pond outside my bedroom window.  They are individual callers and  drive me crazy, like the infamous Chinese Water Droplet Torture.  It's an individual thing; so people think the chirps soothing like rain on the roof, others go nuts.

I go nuts.  I can't sleep when it happens and it lasts about 2 weeks.  Before I retired, I was reduced to fitful sleeping in the guest bedroom (opposite side of the house) keeping several doors closed between the pond and me.  I even put acoustical ceiling tile in my bedroom window, but the shrill chirps came  right through the walls.

I confess it sometimes became so bad that I would sneak out at 2 a.m. and stalk the peepers, stomping on them.  I felt like an idiot standing outside in the middle of the night desperately hoping to stomp on a few poor little innocent frogs.

THEN, I got the bright idea of simply closing down their little dating bar.  No open water, no frogs.  No frogs, no noise.  No noise, good sleeping...

TA DA!!!

The side view:

I feel sorry for the little guys (and gals) I really do.  At least they are just the losers in the choice of water to "date" in, and there is an endless supply of frogs with better choices in locale (he swamp from whence they came across the street).

It started this season when I went to get my morning newspaper and heard all the swamp peepers calling.  I knew what was coming next.  So I looked around for a cover for the pond.  Last year, I used a big piece of plywood.  This year I found something easier.

I set my post hole digger across the pond.  The handles open up to make a stable support for a bucket.  The bucket provided height to make the rain drain away.  Various random objects sealed the edges so that the peepers couldn't crawl in underneath.  I trust that Skeeter and LC won't object to my temporary use of the grave markers.  LC always did enjoy annoying the frogs...

My friends sometimes laugh at my makeshift arrangements.  I prefer to think of it as "resourceful use of available objects".    LOL! 

Anyway, so far, not Spring Peepers ruining my sleep...