We have had frog-a-rama here after a decently wet winter and spring, if the chorusing of Pobblebonks and others (and number of ibis, heron etc visiting our bottom paddock) are anything to go by. It has been a good season for the creatures so I expected to see a lot more snakes - usually a squashed red-bellied black on our road is the first sign of spring - but nothing yet. I drove one out of my growing-on area last season by repairing some irrigation but I'm sure it's not far. Brown snakes hatch late February/early March and I have been told that the baby ones enjoy eating slugs, for those of you who feel brave. I am still keeping my witless terrier un-clipped in case she happens upon one that has just emerged from hibernation Sent from my iPhone > On 2 Nov 2013, at 6:29 am, Jyl Tuck <genus1954@gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear Joyce, We too had so many tree frogs this year. They were every > where and every size and colour that it made me curious and I took many > photos of them and researched them. It turns out that the colour > variations are them responding to changes in tempeture and humidity. They > went from the normal lime green to brown and some with shimmering flex of > gold ( they looked like jewels). > I also have learned that you can tell the health of an area by its > bio-diversity and the frog is a key species. We know that frogs are > vanishing every where ------- they are the first to disappear. So we feel > very proud that we now see 2 species here when we saw none the first years. > We have cleared property (because it had been left to over grow by aging > owners), but we have immediately growen a more diverse tree and plant group > in its place. > I'm sorry to say our biggest threat pest is that they are looking at > logging the land around us. We have no way to fight this. We have tried. > Seems after all our hard work, I can co-exist with all manner of sharp > clawed furry animal or slithering or burrowing creature, but man is the > hardest to reason with. > This is why I love nature, we need each other. Jyl Tuck > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/