Yesterday we went on a nice little day trip, and consequently I have just a few photos to put up, but first, we have last night’s news, which is, now it’s official:
Yep, the first appearance of a treefrog, in this case a Copes grey treefrog (Dryophytes chrysoscelis) means that spring is officially here. Sure, we’ve seen some spring peepers before this, but they can get really early starts and we’ll still get frosts or even snows after their first appearance, so the treefrogs are a much better indication. And certainly, this is my personal guide, but it’s more accurate and dependable than any fixed date on the calendar or the angle of the sun in the sky. It was near 20°c when I took this after 8 PM, having reached 26° during the day I think. And this was not the only one.
The green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) were also in evidence, just to confirm that this was no fluke. We were a little surprised by the next finds, however.
I honestly expected it to be a little warmer, or more dependably warm, before we saw the return of the Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) sleeping on the weeds and trees, but we found at least a dozen of them, so so much for my predictions.
I couldn’t pass up this perspective:
Nearly all of those that we found were juveniles, half adult size or less, but one or two of them were really small.
Those are The Girlfriend’s fingertips that the anole is eyeing distrustingly, while mine were used to measure another treefrog:
Both of the subjects immediately above strike me as being among the last ones out for last year’s breeding season, not having much time at all to forage and put on some weight before having to hole up for the colder months, though this didn’t seem to affect them too much and they’re ready to go now.
The last subject was much the opposite, not lacking in mass in any way:
This southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris,) one of two that we found in close proximity, was several times larger than any other species found last night and both were decently large examples of the species, chunky little warthogs. The lizards were just trying to get some shuteye, but the frogs and toads were all up to find some grub, and since I spotted a couple of flying insects in the headlamp, the opportunities were there, so here’s hoping their first meals of the season were decent. Happy spring everyone!