Lemee out lemee out
lemee out!
I don’t normally
hold my photography subjects captive but this little one was so hyper it was
the only way I could keep it in one spot long enough to document its fabulous
color. I see maybe one red Fowler’s Toad for all of the other usual brown ones
any given year, and I don’t find a red one every year. (And there can be well
over a dozen individuals hopping around in a good year—I once cleaned my patio
of accumulated organic debris and had a bucket “full”.)
And of course about
five minutes after I freed my highly unwilling rusty-colored subject, what do I
look up to see?
Yeah, that’s what
you think it is, dead center of the shot. Practically staring right at me. (It
wasn’t.) Another little red toad…
This one let me get
the camera a foot away from its face without so much as blinking while I took pic
after pic and changed shooting settings (and stepped over it to get up the
stairs)… ::pound head on concrete while down there::
Fowler's Toads like these are now listed as a "Species of Special Concern" in New Jersey.
(I missed getting a
photo of a lovely dark brown-with-gold-markings toad I also disturbed while
cleaning the patio.)
