Critters

For the past several weeks, this has been the view from the kitchen sink.

 

 

Matthew spends the majority of his waking hours either in the "creek"

or playing with the creatures he finds.

 

First there were the frogs that are quite likely the tadpoles of last year. 

The boys thought it would be great fun to have a frog race so the appropriate circles were drawn on the driveway and everyone waited with baited breath.

 

Only the frogs didn't move. 

 

They must have been in complete shock to not being touched after having been manhandled for so long.  Stephen soon got a bucket of water to splash on them.  It wasn't immediate but eventually they remembered to run for freedom.

 

 

They apparently aren't particularly bright as Matthew has captured and recaptured them day after day.

 

 

But boy, do they sing at night!  One of the many advantages to opening one's home to fresh air is being able to partake of nature's symphony which lately has been a call and response of mating frogs.  They are loud!  And tonight we got the pleasure of hearing barking tree frogs (or at least that's what I think it was - a most unusual sound indeed).

 

Then there are the newts.  Or salamanders.  (I looked up the difference between the two and these amphibians are probably salamanders but it's much more fun to be reminded of the P.G. Wodehouse's Newt Fancier Gussie Finknottle).

 

 

The red one I found earlier was recaptured, and Matthew has found two other varieties as well.

 

 

Next on his list is to find a turtle that he can coax to live in the ditch, too.