2AM Serenade by our Resident Bullfrogs

This is about what ours look like now, they are juveniles only a few years old and only about 3-4" long...I obtained this picture from an interesting article on Northern Leopard Frogs and why they are endangered in their native habitats....bullfrogs eat everything and have very little predators here in the west or at least predators that want to take on this monster carnivore.

This is a picture of our bullfrog tadpoles from last year's Biology class. You can see one in the bottom right corner of the tank. Our teacher obtained the tadpoles locally so as not to introduce tadpoles that are not from here....we started out with about 8 tadpoles and have 2 or 3 that have survived to be juveniles. We did not know that these guys were not originally native to here because they are everywhere in the ponds and rivers...native predators are probably coyotes and raccoons as well as birds. So while they might not be originally native they are certainly firmly a part of the ecosystem now for good or bad.

Found this on Wiki and yes these guys are this big...but for kids observing tadpoles these are so easy to watch them go through metamorphosis because of their size...

Anyway my original story is that they started singing last night and while they do not have the mature calls of the big guys that sound similar to a wookie YET they kept up till about dawn....lucky for us the coyotes were not howling last night so it was not too noisy but I felt like I was living near a bog for all the noise.

We do have 2 ponds and if they get too big and noisy we will have to reintroduce them to the local waterways from whence they came--yea that will be fun trying to catch them.

I will try to record what they sound like one night....and try to get some sleep tonight, hope we don't get complaints from the neighbors.