MOTW - Jul 1 - Jul 7 - Uncle Chester

[Froggiefressh]

Uncle Chester, It was fun reading about you. I looked through your Flickr and I must say you are one hell of a photographer. I was really impressed by most if not all of your shots. It really hard to pick, but The "Brave Mealworm" has to be one of my favorites! Congratz on MotW!

[BlueisallIneed]

Flickr: Blueisallineed's Photostream I love taking photos too. Your work is AMAZING! great to know more about you!!

[Jenste]

Wednesday, show and tell. Wow us with your pictures/videos/sound clips.

[UncleChester]

Thanks everyone!

Wednesday, show and tell. Wow us with your pictures/videos/sound clips.

Ooh a curveball... if it's alright with you I'm going to go ahead and do tuesdays task today:

Tuesday, tell us about your amphibians. How you came to keep them, mistakes/learning curves, species kept, breedings, how you found Frog Forum etc....we heard enough about you on Monday, let us hear about them frogs!

[UncleChester]

How I came into frog ownership:

For the past few years I've been putting my education to good waste have been working at a small garden centre. It is on a 100 acre unused farm and is something of a mecca for wildlife. There are always frogs hopping around, and it was here that I discovered we have treefrogs living in Ontario. Crazy! Gray Treefrogs, Hyla versicolor, seemed to be everywhere. It was hard not to love a frog that sits there passively while you are literally inches away from it and yet will burst out with such explosive energy to attack a nearby moth or when calling for a mate. I got to know a few of the regulars by their general location as well as the patterns on their faces.

Usually one of the small greenhouses would stay heated for the winter (to store house plants and other annuals for propagation in the spring) and it always housed a small population of Grays and we could hear them call all winter. 3 years ago, we decided to shut it down for the winter and paint its interior. In preparation, we started kicking out the treefrogs as we found them early in the fall. Unfortunately, we kept finding them after it was too late in the year to kick them out- the snow had already hit the ground. So I built a habitat to winter the leftovers in my house. We found 6 stragglers in total. I had intended to release all 6 in the spring, but that was never meant to be and I kept two of them. Waldo, a male who appeared to be 1 year old when I took him in, won me over with his trilling during the winter months, and Fatty, a female who was at least 2 when I took her in. I had become intimately aquainted with Fatty earlier in the year when she ran into one of the cacti we had for sale (we try to keep the cacti someplace the treefrogs won't go, but accidents are bound to happen). The kind with fuzzy little needles. She had them all over her head like a little mo-hawk and also on her front feet. I spent an hour with little tweezers carefully pulling them out. I became pretty attached to her as as a result and having her all winter in my house was the last straw so I ended up keeping her.

Fall of 2010, we found a fairly newly morphed Gray Treefrog with a left hand that failed to develop properly. I wasn't planning on getting another Gray, but having never really seen a frog with a handicap like this make it to adulthood... I ended up caving and he was taken in and dubbed "Tyr".

Bamf, my American green treefrog, Hyla cinerea, came shortly after. I had built a vivarium to house some sort of north american native frog, but wasn't decided on the species yet. In December I saw a local pet store had a few Hyla cinerea in and my girlfriend offered to buy me one for Christmas. I had planned on going to a show in few months to find an inhabitant for my new tank, but a in 'snap' decision I agreed. They didn't know if he was captive bred or not so I assume he's wild caught, but hey, he was just so darn cute and in the right place at the right time (I hope).

There you have it- (probably) all my froggies are wild caught.

[Jenste]

oh I am so.sorry! I am getting ready for vacationand really mixed up my days! Way to keep me on my toes!