My Favorite Things: Bird Feeders

Bird Watching 

The Droll Yankee Dipper (link above) is an excellent bird feeder that keeps squirrels from raiding your feeder. The bird perches collapse with the weight of the squirrel and they drop to the ground. This version of squirrel-proof feeders does not require a battery because it is entirely mechanical. I've had my Yankee Dipper feeder for 2 years.

I also own the Yankee Whipper (link below) with the circular bird perch. The weight of the squirrel causes the perch to spin and throw the squirrel off. I prefer the Dipper model that does not require recharging a battery. I have owned this model for 10 years.




A new purchase for me is the Droll Yankee brush for cleaning these long, tubular bird feeders. It really makes a difference to have the right tool for the job! This 24 inch brush is high quality and Made in the USA. It reaches all the way to the bottom of the feeder insides and leaves the plexiglass sparkling! (The link is below.)



If you would like to see my bird photography, I post on Twitter @gopamnc. My tweets are optimized for social media and include retweets of good Twitter bird photography. My portfolio-quality photography can be found on iStock/ Getty Images at: https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/pam-schodt .



Affiliate Disclaimer: The links to my favorite things are items that I have purchased and am recommending. If you use the links on this blog post, I may receive a few cents for directing traffic to Amazon webpages.

The Joy of Gray Tree Frogs

Juvenile Gray Tree Frog

Top View: Gray Tree Frog

I never gave the little gray frogs clinging to the underside of our pool much thought. They were tucked into themselves trying to sleep and save energy for the coming night's insect hunt.

Tadpoles at 5 weeks

All that changed when I rescued frog eggs from rainwater collected in the pool cover. For the next 3 months, I raised tadpoles to frogs. If you're interested in my tadpole blog post it can be found here.

Newly Emerged Froglet on Lemon Balm Plant

Gray tree frogs are nocturnal. During the day, I have found them resting on a shaded water faucet, on a sunflower branch, or above the water line at the pool. At night we have seen them on a window waiting for insects attracted to the indoor light. 

New Froglet Appearing Green on Leaf

Color

Gray Tree Frogs can appear whitish gray, greenish white, green, or brown. The froglets climbing out of my tadpole habitat were dark brown. After several hours, the one frog that stayed around turned green. This camouflaged him with the leaf he rested on. The adults that rest above the water line around the pool appear white. The juvenile I found poolside was a greenish white. The frogs on the window hunting after dark are green.

Gray Tree Frog Looking Green

Gray tree frogs or H. versicolor are able to camouflage themselves with their surroundings. The dark froglet emerging from my habitat looked like a mud speck on the black plastic habitat container. The poolside frogs are white-gray and blend into the pool liner that has a white and blue design.


Tadpoles

Gray Tree Frog tadpoles living in nature with predators can develop a red tail. This bright tail helps them survive. Of course my tadpoles were safe and had normal tails.

A few of my observations on raising tadpoles were:

• They would not eat mosquito larvae.
• Some mortality was due to cannibalism.
• They preferred dried worms to fresh.

The tadpole project was long, but enjoyable. These are great little frogs! I was happy to assist the 19 tadpoles that developed into frogs.

More information on the red tails: http://mister-toad.com/photos/frog/gray-treefrog-tadpole-01.html

Spelling: Tree frog or treefrog?

Treefrog can be spelled as one word or split up: tree frog. While searching the internet for information, I concluded that about half the websites spell it tree frog and half the other way.