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mistressofmuses) wrote2024-07-24 08:06 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2024-07-24 08:06 pm
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Monday: South Platte River
On Monday we met up with a friend who did some pick-ups at a model event for us, and since that meant we were in a different part of town than usual, we decided to take advantage of it to go for a walk somewhere we don't typically.
We picked a spot along the South Platte River (The Splatte River, as I usually call it, because I am very clever.) This was a spot that we half-remembered from a time we stopped here a good decade ago. At that time the water was pretty low, and we were able to wander out and poke around for some cool rocks. Alex found a tiny piece of amazonite! So we had the vague hope of doing the same...
The area has changed a little bit. There are athletic fields there now, as well as a few other "improvements", but there is still a trail that goes down toward the river.
This picture is from the middle of a bridge over the river. It was pretty, despite the smoke haze that was starting to settle over us.
The water levels were definitely higher than the year we'd come here before, which surprised me, because it's been distressingly dry this summer. But I guess there's been more rainfall upstream! That did mean no wandering down to look for rocks, because what wasn't underwater was very much mud.
So hot the squirrels were melting.
The squirrel also had a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about me sitting there with Bella.
There is no way to get a picture to convey the sheer quantity of grasshoppers. It's been a piece of local-interest news this year, about "there sure are a lot of grasshoppers, aren't there?" My mom has been complaining about her garden being devoured.
But there are just... thousands of them. Each step along the trail here would send a good 50+ scattering. Just waves and waves of grasshoppers.
I could NOT get my camera to focus well on them, so I'm sorry they're still blurry, but these are lacewing eggs! (And my hand holding a bird egg shell in the background, trying to provide contrast for the camera to focus on...)
I don't think I've ever actually managed to spot lacewing eggs in the wild, though I've seen pictures of them before (it's a fairly unique look, with each one on a strand like that.) Lacewings are good bugs - they eat aphids and other little pests. And they're lovely green, delicate creatures. So I was delighted to actually spot the eggs!
And a juvenile Woodhouse's toad!
I handed the toad to Alex and it immediately peed all over him.
And then... I gave in to peer pressure. (From Alex.) "You have been looking for a toad..."
Looking for replacements for my beloved fire-bellied toad have gone nowhere.
So. I've kept Woodhouse's toads before. (My mom had one named Sharkbait WooHaHa as her classroom pet when she was a teacher, and the toad far outlived her teaching career. [The teaching career only lasted a year before she decided she hated it, while the toad lived a long and happy life in our care afterwards.]) They are also a common species, with little risk to their population.
And while I dislike wild-caught animals winding up in the pet trade, it's legal in Colorado to keep up to four individuals of most common native species, including Woodhouse's toads.
I think I might name her "Big Mad."
Big Mad has been set up in her habitat; got appropriate substrate for her, an opaque hide in case she wants it, a pond (which isn't quite as big as the picture makes it look) that's the right depth.
She's proven to be an extremely efficient hunter, and has already eaten five (!) small crickets in two meals over the last couple days.
We picked a spot along the South Platte River (The Splatte River, as I usually call it, because I am very clever.) This was a spot that we half-remembered from a time we stopped here a good decade ago. At that time the water was pretty low, and we were able to wander out and poke around for some cool rocks. Alex found a tiny piece of amazonite! So we had the vague hope of doing the same...
The area has changed a little bit. There are athletic fields there now, as well as a few other "improvements", but there is still a trail that goes down toward the river.
This picture is from the middle of a bridge over the river. It was pretty, despite the smoke haze that was starting to settle over us.
The water levels were definitely higher than the year we'd come here before, which surprised me, because it's been distressingly dry this summer. But I guess there's been more rainfall upstream! That did mean no wandering down to look for rocks, because what wasn't underwater was very much mud.
So hot the squirrels were melting.
The squirrel also had a lot of uncomplimentary things to say about me sitting there with Bella.
There is no way to get a picture to convey the sheer quantity of grasshoppers. It's been a piece of local-interest news this year, about "there sure are a lot of grasshoppers, aren't there?" My mom has been complaining about her garden being devoured.
But there are just... thousands of them. Each step along the trail here would send a good 50+ scattering. Just waves and waves of grasshoppers.
I could NOT get my camera to focus well on them, so I'm sorry they're still blurry, but these are lacewing eggs! (And my hand holding a bird egg shell in the background, trying to provide contrast for the camera to focus on...)
I don't think I've ever actually managed to spot lacewing eggs in the wild, though I've seen pictures of them before (it's a fairly unique look, with each one on a strand like that.) Lacewings are good bugs - they eat aphids and other little pests. And they're lovely green, delicate creatures. So I was delighted to actually spot the eggs!
And a juvenile Woodhouse's toad!
I handed the toad to Alex and it immediately peed all over him.
And then... I gave in to peer pressure. (From Alex.) "You have been looking for a toad..."
Looking for replacements for my beloved fire-bellied toad have gone nowhere.
(The one guy I'd found on Facebook seems cool, but he's focused on breeding rare color morphs, which are really neat, but are also like, $150 plus the extremely high shipping for a live animal. OR he's looking to only sell pairs of toads to other people who want to breed them, because he wants more domestic breeders of the species... which I'm also a fan of, but I don't have the space or time or setup to make sure I can raise tadpoles and house more adults, nor do I want to mess with selling them myself.
The more mainstream source I'd almost purchased from insisted that the yellow color morph of theirs was due to being captive-bred, which I think I mentioned at the time sounded strange to me... and then in talking with the other guy on Facebook, he said that no, that's indicative of them actually being crossbred with different related species... which I would care a lot less about if they were honest about it, but the fact they aren't makes me sideye it a lot.
(And it's also a bigger problem because the species is so hard to find now... for the most common source to be selling crosses as purebreds, it's compounding the issue, and making it even *harder* to find them.) The species it could be crossed with are similar enough that it theoretically shouldn't impact care or lifespan or anything, and if it's just aesthetic wouldn't be a big deal for me, since all I want is a pet, but... they *aren't* the same species, and I don't know for *sure* that all the care/behavior/lifespan expectations are the same.
The more mainstream source I'd almost purchased from insisted that the yellow color morph of theirs was due to being captive-bred, which I think I mentioned at the time sounded strange to me... and then in talking with the other guy on Facebook, he said that no, that's indicative of them actually being crossbred with different related species... which I would care a lot less about if they were honest about it, but the fact they aren't makes me sideye it a lot.
(And it's also a bigger problem because the species is so hard to find now... for the most common source to be selling crosses as purebreds, it's compounding the issue, and making it even *harder* to find them.) The species it could be crossed with are similar enough that it theoretically shouldn't impact care or lifespan or anything, and if it's just aesthetic wouldn't be a big deal for me, since all I want is a pet, but... they *aren't* the same species, and I don't know for *sure* that all the care/behavior/lifespan expectations are the same.
So. I've kept Woodhouse's toads before. (My mom had one named Sharkbait WooHaHa as her classroom pet when she was a teacher, and the toad far outlived her teaching career. [The teaching career only lasted a year before she decided she hated it, while the toad lived a long and happy life in our care afterwards.]) They are also a common species, with little risk to their population.
And while I dislike wild-caught animals winding up in the pet trade, it's legal in Colorado to keep up to four individuals of most common native species, including Woodhouse's toads.
I think I might name her "Big Mad."
Big Mad has been set up in her habitat; got appropriate substrate for her, an opaque hide in case she wants it, a pond (which isn't quite as big as the picture makes it look) that's the right depth.
She's proven to be an extremely efficient hunter, and has already eaten five (!) small crickets in two meals over the last couple days.