Observing and Reporting on our Backyard!
I just found this very cool website & group; The Michigan Society of Herpetologists. I am a “backyard” herpetologist. 
I’m hoping to be able to meet the group and see their displays at the Reptile Weekend Celebration at the Binder Park Zoo. Sounds like a very fun time! It is August 7th & 8th.
Check them out online! They even have a Facebook page!
We recently did some work on the entrance to our crawl space. We haven’t yet finished and put a cover on it, so it is a bit of a toad trap. When we let the dog out, we try and check the trap and make sure that no toads or frogs have accidentally jumped in the hole. Well, last night the dog wouldn’t stop staring the hole and Steve checked and sure enough a Wood Frog had gotten himself stuck. We tried rescuing him and at first, he just wanted to jump right back in there! We ended up releasing him on the other side of the shed in the woods.
Here are a few pictures:
It was only 29 degrees Fahrenheit tonight and sadly no Frogs out. Every other day it seems like Spring is here and then our hopes are dashed again! It was technically the First Day of Spring at 7:44 am today. Doesn’t feel like it now!
Steve heard the first frogs of the year. Steve heard them a couple night this week. Pretty sure that they are Rana Catesbenia, but not positive. I need to get out the “Frog Call” CD again! We had flooding all over Saginaw County this winter on two different occasions. I’m sure that there will be standing water in the backyard this spring. It should help out the breeding populations of native species of toads and frogs. It will be a mess for our Basset Hound thought!
This was the first entry in our looseleaf notebook journal that we kept last year. Here is what we wrote:
Monday 3/31/2009 @ 8:30pm
Frogs Out!!!
Rain off & on all day. It rained hard from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. We had a massive thunderstorm. It was approximately 46 degrees Fahrenheit according to our La Crosse Technology monitor. . Channel5 News says that it was 36 degrees Fahrenheit in Saginaw, Michigan.
This is the first that we’ve heard the frogs croaking in the swamp in the backyard this season. It is refreshing to hear them again after a long winter.