My frogs, you see, appeared unexpectedly last summer in the little goldenfish pond I created right in front of our porch. They hid quite well in the water plants and arriving guests noted them but I didn't really become aware of their presence till mid July. Then my son Tony (the biologist from Colorado) showed up and informed me that I actually had three different species living in the little pond. The ugly fence was due to a certain 9 month old puppy named Baron. He had a penchant for getting into things and utterly demolishing them.
Mr Biology (Tony) stated categorically that 2 of the 3 frogs in the pond were not native to Minnesota. This posed a rather interesting question. How did they get here? One apparently was native to Florida and the other was completely unknown. Florida or Central America seemed a little to far to have hopped so.... It was then that I remembered the fact that some of the tropical water plants in the pond had been purchased at a local pet store in Rochester. Mystery solved! They were clearly long distrance hitch-hikers. The rest of the summer, we sat on the front porch bird and goat watching, and as the light dimmed in the evening, there was the melodious song of frogs. Friendly visitors from afar. RIBBT. RIBBIT. CROAK CROAK CROAK.
I can't believe that you would blame the garden demolition on that sweet, obviously innocent little puppy. I blame the frogs.
ReplyDeleteLove the frog stories. As so many of your stories do, took me back. When my daughter was a teenager she had an aquarium with 3 frogs. We out lived them.
ReplyDeleteDid you get rid of your cheap-o camera? I ask because the pictures in this post of the one frog with spots, and "Summer Birding" are fantastically fabulous!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the one of the redwinged black bird! That is top quality, postcard perfect!
Sophie
Great story! And way to change the eco-system a little bit up north!
ReplyDeleteNo.. I still have my cheap-o camera, which I use whenever there is the slightest danger of my losing it or dropping it into more than 1 inch of water. Under highly stringent circumstances, I may on occasion be permitted to use Queen
ReplyDeleteB's $700 dollar Nikkon. Then there is the occasional embelleshment from the Internet when all else fails!
I just read your blog about going to the Twins game. I see that my team, the Mariners, have for some unknown reason have learned to play the game, finally, and who should be their victim?--The Twins. Would you not know it. The Twins have an excellent front office and a great manager. That is why they consistently challenge for their division championship. One of my former players pitched for the Twins for a couple years--Tom Edens. Another local from seven miles down the road played for the Twins--Harmon Killebrew. I used to coach on a field called Killebrew Field. The Twins donated $2,500 in 1970 to help build the field.
ReplyDeleteGood story, though it does point out how invasive species get started.
ReplyDeleteAmphibs are pretty limited here, though we have a few strange critters such as the Axolotls and Tailed Frogs.
Funny, as Leedra points out, how stories like this "take us back."
Growing up in the Alleghenies, amphibians were everywhere--salamanders in damp places between closely built houses, frogs in every mud hole, and along the meadows of trout streams peepers whose voices rose to a deafening crescendo as the sun set.
I'm so partial to German Shepards....Baron is a cutie! Destructive??? aren't all puppies??LOL
ReplyDeleteAm I to assume the frogs didn't return this year?
Unexpected fringe benefits! How fun to hear them croaking each night, the three visitors from afar. :c)
ReplyDeleteYou don't have ANY frogs this year? Bummer! I'm seeing fewer than last year myself, but no exotics like you mentioned. (I have put pet-store aquarium plants in my water tub gardens though, so maybe later...)
ReplyDeleteIf you know me, you know that I have a pond and a TON of pond/frog stories. We buy taddies and watch them grow....and then hop away two years later when they have the need to breed. Some new frogs pop in, some come back, and some get eaten. This summer, I had a very large female bullfrog return to my pond. She hopped away last year--disgusted with the fish in the pond spawning. Yeah...the frogs are fun. I'm glad you got to experience that. (FYI...only the males sing!)
ReplyDeleteLove this story!
ReplyDeleteInteresting story.
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