Frogs In The Garden

There has been much concern about many kinds of frogs disappearing, many frogs are becoming extinct due to environmental problems. The biggest thing causing problems for our frogs is the loss of their habitat. When a frog pond disappears so do the frogs, as farms and cities grow, the wetland and forests that the frogs live in also disappear. Added problems are the acid rain, pollution, polluted waters, diseases, too much sun (where trees have been cut down) big changes in water temperature and day time temperatures.

What can be done to help save our frogs in local areas, help to clean-up rubbish in and around local wetland areas and help keep them clean. This will give frogs somewhere to live, feed and breed.

Frog habitat in my back yard

I have made my own back yard frog friendly by creating a habitat where they can find shelter, where they can find water and they can find food. It took many months of planting large and small ferns and baby tears and other plants to create habitat. We erected a water feature, Then covered the entire thing with shade cloth to keep the heat down on hot summer days. With the plants and the water it created a nice little micro climate where small insects the last ingredient to make a frog friendly garden. And it has indeed had the desired effect because over the past few years we have on many occasions see and heard frogs in our garden. We knew we had on our garden the Southern Brown Tree Frogs, photo on the left. But looking at the photo on the right taken this morning we now think the we may have two frog species in the garden this one Litoria verreauxii.

Description
The Southern Brown Tree Frog is a brown frog with a broad darker band from the eyes down most of the back. It has a dark band from the nostril, through the eye, to the shoulder. A pale white stripe runs from the mouth to the arm. The back of the thighs are red. Some specimens from western Victoria and south eastern South Australia can be mainly green. The underside is cream.

Description

Verreauxii Tree Frog is variable in pattern they can have various colour combinations of green, dark brown and light brown. Some are brown with a green stripe down the back and green spreading down each side from the head. Some have a similar pattern where the green is replaced with pale brown. There is a dark stripe from the snout through the eye to the base of the arm. There is dark or black patches on the sides and in the groin, on a pale brown or yellowish background. The male calls from the ground, often several metres from the pond, or floating among vegetation. The call is a whistling burst of 10-20 short notes.

All my effort has paid off, to have possibly two different species of frogs living in my back yard is very satisfying and quite rewarding. I will continue to make sure my back garden remains a frog friendly environment.