Miscellaneous Wanderings and Maunderings
Miscellaneous Wanderings and Maunderings
It’s April 9th, 2023 – Happy Eostre Day. At this time last week we were having snow, wind and rain here in Southwestern Colorado. Now the snow is gone, and it finally feels like Spring is here. I saw my…
Over the last couple of years I’ve been doing a lot of posts and videos about Mexican Spadefoots (Spea multiplicata) in the Four Corners Area of Colorado. Here’s a different Spadefoot – this is a Couch’s Spadefoot (Scaphiophus couchii) from…
On 29th of July, 2022, I was out roaming in Southeastern Utah. Our Summer monsoon rains had started a few weeks earlier, and I was hoping to find Spadefoot Toads. As I walked along a broad slickrock drainage, I found…
Last week (August 31, 2022) I was up in the San Juan Mountains at about 10,500 feet, scouting for mushrooms in the Spruce-Fir forest. I was walking through a wet meadow when I saw a tiny creature hopping near my…
The monsoon rains have come, and I’ve been spending quite a bit of time watching tadpoles in temporary desert ponds and pools. Most of the pools I’ve found this year have not been in my usual cattle tanks and silty mud…
A couple of weeks ago, on July 4, 2022, I came across a big female Bullfrog sitting out in the yard. I was doing my morning chicken-chores, and there she was. Sitting there like some sort of garden gnome.
Here’s a Toad I came across last week on High Island, Texas. It was one of a pair of Toads I found under a piece of damp oak chordwood. As you can see, it had very dark skin, ochre strips…
Birth of Eventually Venus – by Archibald Macleish Cast up by the seaBy the seventh waveBeyond the sea reachIn the rubble of weed andWet twigThe not yet amphibiousAnimalculaGasps and wiggles on the beachGathering her long gold hair about herAnd gazing…
What with the drought, Chytrid fungus and Ranavirus, I figure it’s just a matter of time before they rise up.
On October 20th, 2021, I was in the midst of a whirlwind tour of Tucson, Arizona. I’d come down to visit Saguaro National Park. Unfortunately, I’d arrived too late in the day, and most of the interesting critters were hiding…