A few nights ago, on another of those warm, rainy evenings, I talked my sister into a second trip to wade around a slough, this time down the old tram road south of Van Buren. We were looking for crayfish, Cambarus diogenes and Procambarus acutus, but came up with nothing other than a few small Orconectes punctimanus.
But the night wasn’t a total waste (and let’s face it, a night wading in a slough is never a waste!) Arrayed around the shoreline of the slough, one every 10-12 feet or so, were calling male Dwarf American Toads (Bufo americanus charlesmithi.) The toads were fairly tame and I did get a fair shot of one calling even though I’d brought the waterproof D10 and it’s puny 3x zoom.
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If you click on the photo and look at it at full size, you’ll see that he’s covered with mosquitoes. I used to keep a black light outside my back door and a pair of toads quickly figured out that hanging around the light meant an easy meal. I got a kick out of feeding them and got them to take everything from moths and mayflies to beetles and stoneflies. The only thing I couldn’t get them to eat were giant water bugs (Belostomatidae sp.) which are several inches long and pretty darned intimidating. So if I were a mosquito, anywhere near a toad would seem like a really bad place to be. But the toads were paying zero attention to the mosquitoes and they were taking advantage of the fact. The things we do for love…