Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Frogs and Toads in the window well

I was astounded how much the board members knew about fish hearing; let's see how much you know about toad traction.

My new house has one window well. I check it every day for wildlife and usually find a few frogs or toads (toads, I think, there isn't much water around here) trapped in the well. As long as I get them out quickly they seem to be OK, but sometimes I'm not around for a couple of days and then I don't get them out in time.

It's usually pretty big ones, so I assume they are jumping in while trying to get somewhere important, although today I rescued one who couldn't have been more than 3/4 of an inch long. No idea how he got there, unless one of them laid eggs in the window track.

I either need to cover the window (as I type I'm visualizing a sheet of clear plexiglass) or find a way to let them climb out on their own. The well isn't all that big so any diagonal log/plank/pipe would have to be fairly steep.

Any idea how steep a surface a frog or toad can hop up, and whether they are sufficiently intelligent to figure out that "up = safety" ?

Fortunately my dogs just like to follow them around, not bark like fools or grab them and shake.

Funny that you should mention it, although I know nothing about frogs or toads, we have been seeing the same thing this year, we used to get a couple frogs during the summer in our yard, this year we have about a dozen that cling to the window wells and to the corners of the underside of our entry about 10ft up. We have also had an invasion of lizards, at least five fold of what we would normally see.
Invasion maybe

I was reading up on this a bit... apparently the populations are relatively stable, so if you see a lot of them suddenly it normally means that their old habitat got destroyed and they are doing a mass migration somewhere else.

When you say "cling to the window wells" are they on the inside or the outside ? If they are on the inside (ie down in the hole) I think they are trying to get out and you might want to give them some help

That makes sense, there has been much construction of new homes in my tract and since all the lots are 2 1/2 acres a great amount of what used to be untended land is getting bulldozed. Our frogs stay on the outside of the wells due to the screens, I'm sure if they could get in they would, just to stay clear of my kids.

Maybe try a bit of rigid cargo net... the expanded plastic stuff.. comes in a roll 25" wide with about 1/2" holes.

Here let me take a pic...

Something like this over the top of the window well or draped inside it might help?

Bren R.

John, have you seen these plastic covers? Not only would they keep the wildlife out, they would also keep snow from accumulating in the well.

Maybe, like us, they gravitate towards living spaces with Axioms?

Does that window, by some chance, face a bigg-ass DLP that's frequently displaying the National Geographic channel in Hi-Def?

Have you been finding little tiny soda cups and itsy-bitsy popcorn containers outside the window as well?

Am I helping at all?

Up late last night.... where the hell's my coffee?

bridgman,
Toads and frogs prefer cold, wet, damp places to settle which is why they are often found near swampy areas or around muddy places. They are some Canadian species that move around between water bodies and at least one species i recall that does a migration of sorts, mass crossing of roads. It is hard to say whether they have the intelligence to travel back up a pipe or angled board to get back out of your window well.

I think the PVC window that was suggested would be your best bet for keeping the animals from hopping into the well. I am also thinking about the same as added all season weather protection with the less than stellar quality basement windows. The added bonus is that they also keep out the leaves and garbage that tends to collect in those repositories on windy days.

And you can poke your head out of the window and look around under the plastic bubble and pretend you're Captain Nemo aboard the Nautilus.

Bren R.

I doubt the plastic bubble could withstand the pressure at 20,000 leagues....