Monday, January 16, 2006
Treefrog
This fella is a gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor). We found it when it hopped across our kitchen window at night last summer (August 2005). It's not the first time that this has happened. One year one even hung out in one of our eaves troughs. Obviously, I should have cleaned it better in the fall before.
Note the yellow markings on the inside of the upper leg. They are essential for positive identification where the ranges of the bird-voiced (H. avivoca) and the gray treefrog overlap, but that's not an issue here in Canada.
These climbing frogs can even cling to glass with their toe pads but our star was trying to hop away from us, so he didn't grip as tightly as he could have and was slipping down the window for a while.
Gray treefrogs live in a variety of wooded to partially wooded habitats. They seem to stay relatively clear of ponds and larger bodies of water and supposedly even avoid large swamps. They breed in shallow water. Their food consists of assorted insects that they find on their travels.
A recording of their call (and those of other Canadian frogs) can be found at this site:
http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/frogwatch/learn_frogs.asp?Province=on.
If you live or vacation near a pond or other frog habitat, participate in Frog Watch:
http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/frogwatch/on/steps.html. I'll try to post my observations this spring.
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