Author Archives: Susan

11/24/09

Many Thanks, and a Red-Eyed Tree Frog for You!

We have a lot to be grateful for at FROGS ARE GREEN. We’ve received over 10,000 visitors since we started the blog back in May. We are so grateful for your comments and for your participation in our blog.

As a token of our thanks, Susan designed a poster of our mascot, the Red-Eyed Tree Frog, that you can download and print out for FREE (in three different sizes). We hope you enjoy it and will put up a copy at your home, school, or office to spread the message about our amphibian friends.

Happy Holidays!

Don’t forget to check our galleries of our photo contest photos, wonderful frog art from kids, and photos of wild backyards! (Click on the pictures in the right column of the blog. Feel free to send us your pictures to be included, too!)

Click here and it will take you to the download page.

red-eye-frog-poster-blog-sm

11/19/09

Frog Call of the Week: Jeremiah the Bullfrog

Jeremiah (the American bullfrog) is our largest native frog, growing from 6 to 8 inches in length. Bullfrogs are found throughout most of North America. They like to hang out in large bodies of water like lakes, ponds, and slow-moving streams. Where bullfrogs have been introduced (for example, in the western U.S.), they have become pests because they eat anything smaller than themselves, including native frogs.

The bullfrogs call sounds like rumm….rumm…rumm….or a stuttering ru-u-u-umm…ru-u-u-umm (often written as jug-a-rum).*

I picked up a book recently called The Frog Book, written in 1906 by herpetologist Mary C. Dickerson. She wrote beautiful descriptions of the amphibians she studied. Here’s her description of the bullfrog call:

If we go rowing on river, lake, or park lagoon some moonlight night in late June [in the northeast], we are certain to hear the deep-tone call of the Bullfrog many times. Coming as it does at unexpected intervals and from unexpected directions, it seems startlingly weird in the quiet of night. For June nights are quiet. The insect orchestras are not in full swing, and the frog choruses have disbanded. The Bullfrog does not sing in chorus; the call is an isolated one. The notes are so low that we think of him as the bass viola among frogs. The call resembles, to a considerable degree, the roar of a distant bull..

Here’s a video of a bullfrog calling, created by Ravenswood Media. Enjoy!

Info from The Calls of Frogs and Toads by Lang Elliott and The Frogs and Toads of North America by Lang Elliott, Carl Gerhardt, and Carlos Davidson. Both books include CDs of frog calls.

11/16/09

Frogs Love Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves drift by the window

The autumn leaves of red and gold

—from the song Autumn Leaves

Recently we had a post about how “messy backyards” help wildlife. Since I wrote that post, I came across a wonderful article, “Leaf litter is an Environmental Windfall,” by Master Gardener Vera Strader. She explains why autumn leaves are a boon to wildlife and help enrich the soil.

autumn_leaves-325px

Leaves provide shelter to insects such as earthworms, pillbugs, millipedes, which provides food for toads, frogs, and other small animals. Birds require protein from insects to feed their young. Leaf litter also fosters living soils with huge numbers of soil bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. Strader writes that, “leaves provide a down-like comforter for small animals.”

This past summer, I saw this process occur in my own backyard. I had to clip back all the grape vines on our building’s fire escape for safety reasons. I didn’t get around to getting rid of the pile of leaves and vines until a month or two later. I went to bag the material to throw it away and found dozens of earthworms under it. So I left the pile for the earthworms. Next spring these earthworms will go in my garden (and I’m sure will be a nice snack for some birds, too).

Strader offers practical tips for dealing with fallen leaves. Here are a few:

  • Blow or rake leaves to an unused part of the yard or compost the leaves. (Note: I recently received the Gardener’s Supply catalog, which has a simple wire box that can be used for composting leaves).
  • Keep litter and mulch away from plant stems and stalks to prevent crown rot.
  • On the lawn, use a mulching or rotary lawnmower to shred the leaves, then leave them on the grass to nourish it.
  • Dispose of leaf litter below diseased plants, such as roses, peonies, irises, etc
  • Avoid sending leaves to landfill. Yard waste consumes a huge amount of space and creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

As Strader writes, “Leave the leaves to save time and money, enrich soil, help sustain wildlife, and benefit water and air quality. Mother Nature will thank you.”

By the way, we’ve received some great photos of wildlife-friendly backyards. Just click on the gallery on the right of this post for the wildlife backyard gallery. Feel free to send in photos of your backyard and we’ll post them in our gallery.

11/10/09

Green Books Campaign: Chasing Molecules

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

1765_chase

In CHASING MOLECULES: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry (Island Press, 2009), Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed investigative journalist, chronicles the effects of petroleum-based synthetic chemicals in ordinary consumer products on human health and to the environment. These chemicals may even change, at a molecular level, the way our our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders.

These synthetic chemicals are ubiquitous in the products we use every day:

  • flame-resistant plastics
  • waterproof coatings for textiles and food packaging (like popcorn bags)
  • children’s plastic toys
  • flexible plastic tubing
  • nail polish
  • nonstick pans
  • plastic food and beverage containers
  • sunscreen
  • carpets and furniture

Chemicals from these products make their way—through the air, water, and soil—in our environment, our food, and our bodies. In addition, toxic chemicals that were once frozen in Arctic ice are now being released into the air and water as the ice melts because of global warming.

The chemicals can even alter one’s genes in a process scientists call epigenetics. The introduction of a chemical foreign to the body may change the way the gene interacts with other molecules in the cell’s nucleus. Exposure early in life—particularly before or just after birth—seems to be the prime time for these kinds of changes to occur. But epigenetic screening is not part of routine chemical testing of a chemical.

One example that surprised me was the effect of the chemical tributyltin, which is used as a wood preservative, glass coating, and many other uses. In animal studies, it was found that exposure to tributyltin increased the number of fat cells, thus possibly setting into motion a genetic propensity at birth for obesity.

Despite this gloomy scenario, Grossman offers hope in the burgeoning field of green chemistry. She argues that we don’t have to do without these products. Rather, industries need to create products that are “benign by design.” These new compounds will mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this radical transformation.

Don’t be put off by the word “molecules” in the title. I’m not a chemist, yet I found Chasing Molecules to be an extremely absorbing, but not a highly technical, read. It’s a 21st-century Silent Spring, very readable but sometimes shocking. Her message is an urgent wake-up call for industries to invest in green chemistry and to create products that won’t harm people and the environment.

100bloggers-logo-150px

NOTE: Along with the review copy, we received a hand-out written by Grossman with information about the safety of various consumer products. Grossman is careful and measured, never hysterical. We thought it might be useful to share her suggestions (buying children’s toy, plastic containers, etc) with FROGS ARE GREEN readers in the next couple of weeks.

11/7/09

Frogs: Angels of the Forest

In early September, we wrote a post about The Prince’s Rainforest Project contest to name its rainforest frog mascot. I’ve just learned that they picked a name: Orifiel, which means angel of the forest.
Meet Orifiel

Meet Orifiel

I did a little research because I had never heard of this angel. Orifiel is an archangel, one of the angels that are part of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. Unlike the more charismatic angels like Gabriel, Rafael, or Michael, Orifiel is a bit more mysterious. In fact, I could only find information about him/her on a couple of angelology sites. On these sites, Orifiel is described as the angel of the wilderness who helps save the wild areas of earth.

We like the image of frogs as angels of the wildnerness!

11/4/09

Frog Call of the Week: Spring Peepers

Can you tell the difference between crickets and spring peepers? I used to get confused sometimes between the sound of crickets chirping and frogs calling. Some frogs have bird-like calls. In anticipation of next spring, and in hopes of becoming better Frog Watchers, we are highlighting one frog call per week. We’ll start with familiar frogs in North America, but will also feature frogs from around the world. Below you’ll hear spring peepers and crickets so you can learn to tell the difference. Actually, it’s kind of fun to play the videos at the same time, too!

Spring peeper calling:

Crickets chirping:

If you would like us to highlight a particular frog call, please let us know!