Posts Tagged ‘fort worth fauna’

The Rocky Mountain toad has a wide range which includes mountain and plains states almost from the northern to the southern borders of the U.S.

Over the weekend, at that party on Saturday night outside Krum, we had the opportunity to meet some people and some creatures that were living on the land. My husband’s dissertation director lives in a nice doublewide mobilehome full of valuable antiques out on the Texas prairie. And all around her, the creatures of the land are crowding in. Thus it was that the kids found a Rocky Mountain Toad crawling up to the metal skirting beside the house, and caught it. They brought it to me in a bucket.

The younger children were up in arms: “Let me hold it! Mom, he (oldest son) won’t let me hold it!”

“Of course I won’t let her hold it, she’s gonna drop it! We just want to show it to you, then we’re letting it go.”

“He held it, and he dropped it too! It’s my turn … ”

I supervised the younger kids holding the toad, very carefully, and then it was released. We washed our hands.  And I went home and, owing to the toad’s large pale dorsal marking, was able to determine that it was a Bufo Woodhousei woodhousei, or, as I said, a Rocky Mountain Toad.

Description: A large, round-bodied toad with cranial crests (ridges on its head) and large spots. The belly is white or yellowish.

Size: From 2.15 to 4 inches in length, and almost as broad as it is long.

Range: The range goes from Montana and North Dakoka down the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, takes in Arizona and Utah on the other sid of the Rockies, covers most of Texas and all of New Mexico.

Diet: Insects.

Habitat: They frequent many different habitats, but seem to prefer sandy soil and are more active after a rain or in humid weather.  Oftentimes they can be found foraging in early evening under a streetlight, where insects are more prevalent.

Population status: Little attention seems to have been paid to the conservation status of this creature, and I suppose since I’ve seen two this spring, they have to be fairly abundant. But it does seem there has been a reduction in range between the time my book, “A field guide to reptiles and amphibians” was published in 1958, and the current-day range map I found online.

Sound of its Calls: From California Herps, this is a group of Rocky Mountain Toads near an irrigation ditch in Riverside County, east of greater Los Angeles.

Photo credit: traveling.lunas photography from flickr creative commons

The horned frog prefers arid spots and dry grasslands as habitat

I never thought I would love a frog, but now that I sport a logo of one in the TCU sticker on the back of my car, I consider the sighting  of real live Texas Horned Frogs in the yard a sign of the favor of the Universe.

Twice now I have seen small, brown, broad-bodied frog-like creatures (more conventionally known by their proper name of Horned Lizards) scurrying away from me while I was tending my vegetables. The children tell me they have seen them as well. It begins to appear we are in possession of our own Texas Horned Frog preserve. If so, I have to admit I feel very lucky, since this animal, the mascot of our local university, Texas Christian U, does seem to have something endearing in its rough features and scurrying, low-slung body.

Have you seen a Texas Horned Frog? Apparently they used to be everywhere, but today populations are down.

Description: Light brown lizard with horn-like growths on its head; wide in body, like a toad or frog, thus the common name “horned frog.” They are physiologically, however, members of the lizard family.

Size:  About four inches long.

Range: From the south-central United States to northern Mexico, including much of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico.

Diet: Main food is harvester ants, many of which have been killed off by pesticides or by the dreaded red fire ants.

Habitat: Arid or semi arid, light sandy or loamy soils, with light plant cover. (Maybe that’s why they like our yard — it’s xeroscape, no irrigation, and no pesticide has touched it in years.)

Population status: Considered a threatened species.

Here is more on how to Horned Toad became endangered. You can help with efforts to preserve the Texas Horned Lizard through a program with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Go Horned Frogs (the species!) No disrespect to the football team of course.

Image credit: Jim the Corsair

As I was walking the dogs with my daughter at twilight over the weekend, one of the dogs went after a small creature in the long grass. I investigated and found a frog trapped against the barrier errected down by the creek dividing the site from where they are doing road repair. I picked the frog up. It was rough and vibrated in a kind of muffled croak. I looked at it in the twilight.

“Put it down,” my daughter said. “You’re scaring it.”

I certainly didn’t want to do that. I put the frog on the other side, the creek side, of the barrier and went home to figure out what I’d caught.

To the best of my twilight-observation, the thing it was a Plains Leopard Frog. Although I looked through Flickr Creative Commons, I couldn’t find an image. So the words will have to suffice.

Description: A rough-skinned frog with brown skin and spots on its back. Two back ridges.

Size: About 4 inches long (head and body only).

 Range: From North Texas up through Kansas.

Diet: Insectivourous, will also eat other smaller frogs.

Habitat: the Plains Leopard Frog lives in creeks and waterways that cut across the grasslands. The creek in our neighborhood is just about right for it.

Population status: Well-established.

Listen: Click this link and the clicking call of the frog is heard when the site opens.

A few  weeks ago I saw a pair of Mallard ducks in the creek by our house. There’s a long thin park there with mowed grass, and some rough brush down by the water’s edge, but the creek itself is not very deep or wide so it surprised me to see them several days in a row, swimming along in a pair, in clear water no more than a foot deep. They looked completely placid and happy in this unusual urban environment.  I couldn’t help but think that they were there because they didn’t want to be part of the free for all over at Foster Park at the corner of South Drive and Trail Lake, where a large group of ducks and geese is regularly swimming, waiting for the bread that visitors routinely bring. I didn’t blame these two for wanting to be apart, and I thought it was a nice thing, to have ducks in the neighborhood.

Mallard Duck Details

Description: With its iridenscent green head, black tail and purple patch in the wing feathers, male Mallards are easy to identify. The female is less striking, being a simple mottled brown.

Size: About 20-26 inches long, one of the larger duck varieties.

Range: The Mallard’s range covers just about all of North America. The bird winters in the southwestern United States and Mexico, can be found all year in the middle regions of the country, and summers in Canada, which is its breeding ground.

Diet: “Insects and larvae, aquatic invertebrates, seeds, acorns, aquatic vegetation, and grain” according to the Mallard’s entry on All About Birds.

Habitat: All wetlands.

Population status: The most widespread and abundant duck in North America, it is heavily hunted and numbers are carefully tracked by conservationists.

Listen: Mallard Duck call.

You can also Help Track Mallard Populations by entering birdwatching data on the Celebrate Urban Birds Website.

Woodpeckers in Fort Worth? I just didn’t know we had them; I had to try to see this bird. As it turned out, it wasn’t diffiult. I just followed the sounds, and there he was, about fifteen feet up near the sawed-off top of a dead tree. He tapped a few more times, jumping quickly around the trunk, allowing me to see his read head and checkered back, then took off.

It’s nice to know that we are not without wild animals, even in the city. I assembled some notes on this bird to begin a new category for this blog: Fort Worth Fauna, a catalogue of our local wildlife.

Red-Bellied Woodpecker Details

Description: With a red stripe over most of the head, a checkered back and a white front, the red mark on the belly which gives the bird its name is not generally visible.

Size: About 9′ long, or the size of a robin.

 Range: Covers most of the eastern United States. Dallas/Fort Worth is about as far west at the bird is seen. 

Diet: “Primarily insectivourous” (that was a new word for me) according to Cavity-Nesting Birds of North American Forests, a US Park service on-line publication. The Red-Bellied eats beetles, grasshoppers, nuts of various types and will also visit birdfeeders if it gets the chance. 

Habitat: Southeastern forests. Prefers larger expanses of trees. 

Population status: Currently increasing. 

Listen: Red-Bellied Woodpecker song and pecking sound: