WILDLIFE AND MY SHED

My shed porch with hanging bushel basket

My old shed is rather unique as it has a roomy open porch where one can sit and read or think or do just about anything.  A wood plank door located at the back of the porch leads to an interior room, also roomy with a broad wood shelf along one side. 

When I first moved here, I thought of converting the shed to a studio but soon realized that the hornets, spiders and  insects loved the place more than I did.

And another species soon loved the place when I hung my bushel basket high up on the porch wall.  I soon realized that a couple of little Carolina wrens were zipping in and out of the basket after I had hung it. 

I tilted the basket a bit to peek inside and realized that the wrens were setting up an encampment for their future family. So instead of sitting on the shed's porch to read and think I backed off and and occasionally watched their activities from a distance. I was rewarded by their lovely songs that first summer. 

Now five years later,  they are still using my bushel basket each summer -- hanging on the shed wall just for them. 

As I write this,  the basket nesting site is empty of wrens. Gone also is their  lilting summer songs that they sing during nesting time, especially the male.  I still have an occasional view of the  wrens as they flit about my trees with various short chirpy notes. They stay through the winter. They usually mate for life.

Yesterday my fall  day was heavy with winter-like skies. A sign of the approaching winter season. I realized it was time to start battening down my hatches to keep me warm and safe against winter storms.

Then again, spring will return and the wrens, hopefully, will still be here with me and again decide to nest in my basket. What goes round, comes round as my good friend always used to say. 

I'll keep my basket hanging just in case.

Wren's nesting abode

GRAY TREE FROG -- MEMBER OF MY EVENING CHORUS

Gray Tree Frog -- Hyla versicolor

Since early April I have been serenaded by tree frogs. Their melodic croaks begin as dusk turns to night. For awhile I timed when the Carolina Wrens stopped singing in the evening and when the tree frogs started up their chorus. It was interesting that within minutes of the wrens signing off the frogs started up. It was almost as if they had an agreement to keep nature's songs in the air.


Of course with a good rain shower during the daytime the frogs belt out a few crocks.  


In the above photo you'll notice the small Gray Tree Frog sitting on the ledge of my outdoor electrical outlet box. He sat there yesterday, very still, yet his eyes appeared watchful. 


The tree frog is native to the United States and is only about 1.5 to 2 inches at maturity. The female does not croak -- only the male. (yes, one could get several jokes out of that last statement)


Frogs eat a diverse diet of both beneficials and non-beneficials in our gardens. Some of their favorite foods are algae, amphibians, insects, spiders, mites, plant lice, harvestmen, and snails.  


Frogs depend on bogs, swamps, and lakes for their life cycles. All of nature benefits from healthy streams, bogs, swamps, and lakes. And, as we are nature, so is the Gray Tree Frog. Both depending on healthy water.

RESOURCES:


1) University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Tree Frog


2) eNature.com Gray Tree Frog Croak