I really enjoy the toads. I keep three empty pots on the porch for them and dump water in every evening to keep the habitat nice and muddy for them. They burrow into the mud and sleep there during the day to escape the heat. At night they jump out and busy themselves eating the insects drawn to the porch light. They’ve become familiar enough with me that i can toss some of them a Junebug and they catch and eat it. They tolerate me and my incessant need to have them burrow in the pots without the rooted plants in them. Im constantly waking them up and rotating them over to the designated toad habitats.
The summer came with a certain type of evening music. The crickets, toads, and cicadas all chorused in unison beneath the melody of a chuck wills widow to produce a song graced periodically with the noise of a passing cardinal or a frightened deer. It was beautiful evening music. These were the sounds of Summer.
Where we used to live, a neighbor had an old bug zapper that would kill the bugs without catching them in a “catch basin”, so the bugs would just fall to the ground.
One toad figured this out and would sit under the bug zapper. Compared to the other toads, this one was *HUGE*.
I love this! There was a huge toad on the porch one year called George and he figured out the june bugs were attracted to the porch light but i dont leave it on during years when the orb weavers are in great numbers because it attracts praying mantises and they eat the orb weavers as well as moths and june bugs and anything at all really. I love the toads. They’re pretty fun to watch.