Last Friday, Michelle made a very welcome discovery in the garden: a boreal toad.
This is the second one she’s found here. The first one appeared last August. This one is bigger than that one.
Michelle holds our new guest of honor (Photo: Mark Zeiger).
We’re really happy to find another toad on the homestead. Not only are they great in gardens, where they eat snails and slugs (although we have none of the latter here, he types, rapping his knuckles bloody on every handy piece of wood . . .) but they also boost our quaintness factor considerably. Also, as toads and frogs continue to disappear from the planet, to the point of worries over extinction, we’re just happy to find one anywhere!
In keeping with that, we delayed our guest for a brief photo op, then Michelle returned it to the garden, where we wish it a long and happy life, with a lot of wild toad sex and resulting progeny. For our part, we’ll be keeping our look out sharp and watching where we step in the garden and elsewhere through the summer and fall, just in case.
We had one in our greenhouse a week ago! It was exciting!
Excellent! Do you know if the Takshanuk Watershed Council wants reports on sightings? I hate to pester them with everything we see out here, but if they’re keeping data, I’d like them to know.
I don’t know if they are recording sightings or not. If I find out that they are, I will let you know!
I recently heard that they have a section on their Web site for wildlife sightings. I haven’t checked it out yet, but that’s much more my speed!