Reebok the Grand Junction Bullfrog

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Reebok was found on the road during a thunderstorm
early on the morning of June 28th, 2012.

Reebok is a male. There is an easy way to figure this out. The circles behind his eyes (the tympanum) are larger than his eyes. If it were a female, those circles would be smaller.

We decided to see if we could create a suitable temporary habitat for him. We bought all of the aquatic plants that you can see in the pond here for just $12 at Meadowlark Garden Center on Broadway in Grand Junction, but there is still plenty of work to do. I'd like to buy a floating log at Petsmart and another little plastic house that looks like a hollow tree stump for Reebok to shade in if he chooses. But for now, I think it looks pretty nice. I guess we'll have to see if Reebok even sticks around for more than one day.

This pond already gets quite a bit of shade from the surrounding trees, but we decided to try to create a little "frog house" for Reebok. I guess time will tell if he approves of this little shelter.

For the moment, he seems to be content with his new surroundings. Here he is luxuriating in a nice, froggy Colorado spa.  We watched YouTube videos showing us what bullfrogs eat and how to feed them. Based on that information, we bought ten goldfish feeders to start off with. We'll also try to feed him some other things like night crawlers, and even frozen mice (thawed of course).

At first, I was worried that Reebok wouldn't be able to jump out of the pond, since the plastic edges were higher than the water level. Several times this afternoon, he has proven that there is no reason to worry. He just sits near the side of the pond, and quickly hops back in whenever someone approaches.

Reebok

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The Colorado River Trail at 10pm with hundreds of beady eyes is a whole different world. Tonight I saw my first Colorado skunk, my first Colorado raccoons, what I think was a very large jack-rabbit, a bullfrog with a body as large as my hand, and I got my first taste of Colorado adrenaline. Just as I was thinking that I was in a perfect place to startle a thirsty mountain lion, I rounded a turn right into a pair of fiery eyes, nearly my height, just 4 feet away. I screeched to a halt. I do believe that I was more shaken by the deer in the headlamp than it was by me.

 

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Beatrix the Backyard Toad

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Rachael was pulling weeds in the backyard and found this toad.

Not sure what kind of toad this is... maybe a Western Toad?

We're calling her (him?) Beatrix.

We're going to try to create a "toad habitat" in the back yard that will (hopefully) be as inviting as the weeds were before they were picked.

Update: We kept Beatrix for one night. I put about 12-15 adult crickets in her cage, and by morning she had eaten every single one. I created a little toad pond in the back yard near the bushes where we released her. Hopefully she'll be as happy there as in the weeds.

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Frida = Freeeeeed-a = Freedom!

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Frida the tadpole grew up. We all knew this day would come.
(you can see the kind of tadpole she started out as here)

We found a suitable place to release her/him.

Frida in some nice, cool Colorado River mud.

Bon Voyage, Frida! It was lots of fun.

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Frida of the nine (x2) fingers, and the tail that's doomed.

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Frida the tadpole now has 4 legs and less of a tail than she did yesterday. I knew how all of this was supposed to work, but even so it has been surprising just how quickly the transformation has taken place. Her back legs showed up overnight a few nights ago. The next morning, one front leg appeared. By that afternoon she had all four legs. That was two days ago. Her tail has shrunk by half since then, absorbed back into her body. It really is an amazing process to watch. Now she'll be eating tiny insects instead of lettuce. We have stocked her critter cage with lots of tiny baby crickets, which were raised from eggs in another critter keeper. We keep the adult crickets in that one, which are meant to be fed to our predaceous diving beetles. Here is a picture of Frida just a few days ago:

Frida with just two legs and a long tail.

I have been thinking that Frida is some kind of toad, but this video is making me wonder if Frida may be some sort of a tree frog. I guess I'll have to do some reading up on frog/toad identification to figure out what she/he is. After watching the video a second time, it seems as if all the tadpoles turn out to be toads. The first one they show looks very similar to ours here, minus the spots.

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Frida the Tadpole

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Frida was a wee little thing when we found her (or him... in which case the name is Freddy) over a month ago. Aw... they grow up so fast. It seems like it was only yesterday that she/he didn't have any legs. We've been enjoying watching her/him grow into an adult. We'll take it back to where we found it when it's an adult.

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Flying Ants, Dragonfly Niads, and Stoneflies

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Today we rode our bikes from the botanical gardens in Grand Junction to the entrance to Corn Lake on 32 Road; we saw a lot of creatures along the way. We found a stonefly, some tiny tadpoles, and an assortment of frogs and toads. In one little pond we found a dragonfly nymph (or naiad), hundreds of water boatmen, a few water striders, snails, and some kind of aquatic insect that stays underwater and looks like a fat, spherical tick. A bit farther along the trail we found an ant nest whose winged members were preparing to participate in a mating flight.

Update: What I have always thought were water boatmen were not. They are actually backswimmers. I had no idea that the two were any different. It turns out that water boatmen surface upright and backswimmers surface on their backs. Other than that, they look very similar to one another. So what I saw were backswimmers and not water boatmen. I'm not sure that I've ever actually seen a water boatman.  Here is an article that describes backswimmers and another that describes water boatmen.

You don't want to see this if you are a small insect or crustacean.

A view for scale.

The dragonfly naiad is a decent-sized little critter.

I don't normally post pictures of dead insects, but I had never seen one of these before. It is a stonefly. We found it on the bike trail between a stagnant, receding pond and the swiftly flowing Colorado river. Look at this picture for a better idea of what the living version actually looks like. Another insect that I have yet to see is a dobsonfly. I've heard that they can be found around Grand Junction. I'm looking forward to finding one.

The stonefly is a medium-sized insect belonging to the order plecoptera. A plecopteran sighting is a good thing, as they can not handle water pollution. If you spot one, it means that the water source is healthy. When I first saw this one, I thought that it might be a female dobsonfly or caddisfly (two other species I've never actually seen) but a quick look online revealed that it must be a stonefly. 

In the process of trying to identify the stonefly, I discovered another insect I had spotted in Georgia way back in 2005 and had never been able to identify. An owlfly. The way that it rests on plant stalks is very distinctive, with its wings folded back and down in a very unusual manner.

 These tadpoles are quite a bit smaller than a pencil eraser.

 

 

A short video showing the tiny tadpoles we found. 

When they reach adulthood, we'll release them.

They are in the smallest critter keeper you can buy. 

Update: Another tadpole that started out just like these critters a month or so ago has become an adult. Check this link to see what Frida became. ~ http://bit.ly/NsCCFT

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Frogs on Colorado River in Grand Junction

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Today was "Frog Day" along the Riverside Trails in Grand Junction.
This frog was spotted between 29 Road and Corn Lake.

We saw several frogs and tadpoles in the water and on the trails.
Here you can see the frog from the first picture alongside the trail.
This frog was the smallest one that we saw by far.

First frog we saw, in a little pond created by the flooding river

near the trail entrance at the Botanical Gardens on 7th Street in GJ.

There were several tadpoles, with bodies the size of large goldfish.

This frog was seen on the Palisade Section of the Riverside Trails.

There is a place where this trail is washed out, and this frog was 

in a flooded section between the trail and the Grand Valley Canal.
They definitely appear to be enjoying the flood waters.

This frog has had enough attention for today.

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