As a gardener, I love wildlife. All kinds!

I came across an interesting article about Amphibian Decline around the world:
https://www.nwf.org/Home/Garde...

I don't know about you, but I love frogs as well as many other Amphibian garden creatures. FrogWatch USA is a citizen science program that is monitoring the decline of frogs here in this country:
https://www.aza.org/frogwatch

I have indeed noticed a huge decline in toad frogs here in my area. I used to see toads often when I was a child. Now it is a rarity to see a toad in my yard or neighborhood. I do however see the invasive Cuban Tree Frogs. But even those I don't see nearly as many as I used to. This sure makes me wonder what is going on.

What do you think is the reason for the Amphibian decline?

This is an interesting and cute video about Frogwatch USA:
http://pbskids.org/scigirls/vi...

There is a lot less toads here than there used to be, but some of that might be lasting effects from the drought from years ago. In general, this was a dry year where we are:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

Here's a bronze frog that that has claimed the empty pots around my outdoor work table as it's personal domain. Glad he (?) overwintered successfully.

Oh, it's cute! When the toads are around my place, they DO like to stay in pots, empty or not! And welcome to the site!

Me and my son keep this one area that has puddles filled during the summer for all the tadpoles. There's always thousands of little ones born there each year, it's a wonderful experience to share with my son. We also make hide outs for toads to go when it's hot. We dry stack rocks for rock gardens and intentionally leave gaps and things for them. I hope this helps there population in our area at least. I'll post pics when they start laying. We also make habitats for other creatures in our yard. We enjoy Gods creations and try to show it as we can.

That's great, that you think of the tadpoles and provide a place for them!

I get so much more from them than I could ever give back. They are awesome creatures! Also I know that our lifestyles are causing loss of habitat, contamination of the habitats and pollution. It's the least I can do.

Took pics of a male and female prairie lizards in my yard today. Saw the female first, and caught her for a perspective photo to show she's pretty small. Little while later spotted the male. No catching him! Too fast. Barely got a picture, and had to crop it since he was just a small part of the original image!

female:


male, with his pretty blue tummy:



Not sure if folks look at this thread, much, but I love the amphibians in my yard. It's breeding time for the Prairie Lizard according to the MDC, so these guys may have had a love connection.

I love the lizards in my yard! They help keep the bugs under control. Unfortunately, we have a lot of cats around that don't care about that.

Cool lizards Chris!

I blame the unusually cool spring. Our cold blooded friends just aren't very active with these cool nights. Maybe it's time to post about all the things we aren't seeing that we normally would. I worry the nesting barn swallows, blue birds etc won't find enough insects. The low activity of mosquitoes is really nice.

Hopefully things will pick up here as it warms up.

w/ Carol Love all the amphibians in our yard, and we have a lot! Skinks, frogs, toads, snakes, turtles. Lots of pest bugs get eaten! We have this one tiny little brown snake called the Midland Brown. They eat slugs and snails, so I just love them. I've seen folks mistake them for baby copperheads, but they are in fact adults at that size. There are ways to tell the difference, but a lot of folks just don't like any snakes. I prefer that the slugs, snails, mice and other pests that the snakes eat be kept under control, myself! I have tons of retaining walls, and no major slug problems, and I credit those little brown snakes. First home I've had where I didn't have slugs and snails everywhere!

I think the cats that came around here focused on the chipmunks. We didn't have a cat patrolling our yard last summer, and their population exploded!

Thanks, Will. Hadn't thought about that. It looks like things were pretty active here today. We've had a variety of different flies for a while, and I imagine some did some pollinating of fruit trees that were blooming, as I didn't see much bee activity. Unfortunately, saw some bee activity that I don't like today, though. We had a real problem with carpenter bees last year, and saw one looking for home sites around my house today. Also saw a mud dauber looking for spiders. These guys I like, as long as they don't chose an obvious site on my wood siding.

This is the only snake I've seen this year. Caught a yellow rat snake sunning.

The lizards and toads are impacted by the drier weather here this year. We got 1/4 inch recently...needed inches, not fractions! So, very few amphibeans.

Same here, Linda. I haven't seen any sign of a slug or snail for three or four years. It's just too dry for them.

Eastern narrow mouthed toad

I overlooked this post. Cool toad! Looks like he's pretty tiny. I've never seen one of these before. I checked the MDC site, and appears we have them in Missouri, so I'm going to hope to see one in person Do you live near a river, Will, or some other water?

Thanks!
I live close to a hardwood bottomland swamp, there's flowing water a mile in any direction and as a bonus I live in the Carolina bays region so normally there's tons of ephemeral pools for tadpoles. They're dry this year, drought has me worried and it isn't even summer yet.

It's a cool little toad! Pretty and anything that eats ants is ok in my book! But they're very shy, they hide under stuff.

Found another, added a dime for scale. They're very docile, don't hop much.