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Boney critters of our garden |
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Boney?
What with the incredible diversity of boneless lifeforms (insects, spiders, worms,
you name it), the bone-in offerings seem a bit more limited. Especially since
birds hardly ever want to sit for a photo, this page has just a few birds, mammals and
amphibians...
Pondsters
We hope to see frogs every year in our pond. When we first put the
pond in, six years ago, we bought a few bullfrog tadpoles and watched them
grow. I think they survived the first winter, but one of the following winters,
they all gave up. Since then, we see no amphibian life in the pond in the spring
and early summer, but usually a frog or two (or more) will show up by mid-summer
and hang around for the rest of the season. With all the goldfish running
amock in our pond, frog eggs probably wouldn't stand a chance, so I doubt they
could successfully breed.
We'd love to have toads, but the last one we saw was years ago. Since then,
the neighborhoods around us have all been built up, and toads don't come around
any more.
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A turtle is something new to our garden and pond. While driving through our
neighborhood one day this spring, Amy noticed this fella crossing the road,
and "rescued" it to our pond. Turns out it's an Eastern painted turtle
(Chrysemys picta picta), whose species is widely distributed
throughout the US. It was probably making its way from one of the natural
ponds in our area, in search of a better place to pass time - I hope it
doesn't mind its new digs. So far, it has been perfectly content, but until today
it was very shy - we couldn't get closer than about 20 ft away before it would
unceremoniously plump back into the (murky) pond. Recently, it has relaxed a
bit, allowing me to take this photo of our Boxy sitting amidst blue flag
leaves in the pond.
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Furry ones
Mammal life is limited in our garden. We always have rabbits, and Mr.
Squirrel shows up to empty our birdfeeders in winter (but is nowhere to be
seen the rest of the year). We haven't seen our chipmonk twins this year,
and groundhogs haven't made an appearance recently. The last vole I saw
didn't survive his encounter with yours truly, and deer, who live on the
other end of our neighborhood, haven't ventured into our garden thus far (knock on
wood!).
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Rabbits have discovered that our garden makes a great salad bowl. They are quite
bold! At this time of year (summer), they don't do much damage. Our vegetable
garden is enclosed - baby bunnies can get through the wire mesh, but bigguns
can't.
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Feathered friends
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Okay, finally figured I should take a bird photo, just to even things out a
bit. So here it is - a Northern mockingbird, caught scoping out a nesting
location in our weeping cherry in late winter. Maybe I'll get better at snapping
bird pictures one of these days... |
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One of the few birds I can identify (so far), robins make quite a show of
themselves in spring. They stay away from me quite effectively, so I haven't
managed a better photo yet. I believe the one at left is female, the one at
right male.
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Robins are also the birds most likely to nest in our garden. We spotted this one
in late May, about 7 ft up in an arborvitae.
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Fish
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Okay, so maybe the fish in our pond don't qualify as wildlife - we introduced
them, and perhaps that makes them "pets". But the current set is several
generations removed from the original few, and they live off what the pond
provides naturally - so I say they are mostly wild.
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Visitors to this page have left the following comments| Debbie | Sep 05, 2005 | This site was very great and intersting. |
| Shankar Venkataraman | Jun 23, 2006 | Your site was inspiring and informative. Awesome.
You said that you don't feed the fish. Wow! Is it a natural pond.
Can you post a bigger picture of your entire pond. Do you maintain
the pond or is it a wild pond ? |
| Hannah | Jun 30, 2007 | Thats really cool! I have some goldfish too and I was wondering if you had any information on the spawning season? I have 2 fish and one of them is chasing the other aroud, but I don't know if they're male or female.
I'm not a fish expert, but from pond observations, I'd guess the littluns appear in early summer. |
| George Steele | Aug 02, 2007 | If you want to keep the painted turtle or other tortoises around, plant a small packet of collard greens nearby. They and the rabbits like to eat them. |
| erica | Sep 10, 2007 | I live in zone 4/5 and I had a pond for 12 years. I'd put my fish outside at the end of March and I'd have more fry than I'd want to. I even would sometimes get 2 batches a year. I do believe the water needs to be in the upper 50s for them to spawn. My fish would chase each other around all year long but I'd only notice the eggs in the early Spring. I could never tell which was male or female. |
| Deanna | Nov 15, 2007 | What kind of tadpole or toads did you have?
I really don't know - I'm not much up to speed on amphibian species... |
| Jessica | Dec 14, 2007 | When did the frogs lay their eggs. What month of the year?
I've no evidence frogs ever reproduced in our pond - they seem to find their way to our pond in summer. I hope that the fishless conditions of the bog filtration zone for our new big pond will be more conducive to amphibian procreation... |
| Avalon | Apr 02, 2008 | You have inspired me!! I am going to make a site like this. I love my garden and every little critter in it. Thanks!
Sounds great - drop me a line when you get your site started :-) |
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Last modified:
June 10, 2005
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