Doug vs. the interweb

June 5th, 2010 12:09 AM

Alright you dudes. It is time for more stories about creatures.

There are several ponds near here, and even though I have been going a little crazy trying to catch stuff in the nearby waterways, I neglected to visit one particular one, because I remembered not being able to find anything there. A few weeks ago I figured it was worth a try regardless, and holy cats -- that thing is teeming with life. I have no idea why I was badly misinformed.

It's actually two ponds, with one much smaller pond situated a bit further uphill. The tiny pond is almost entirely sludge and algae, which makes it disgusting to go rummaging through, but it also has creatures I haven't found anywhere else yet. First, it was just tadpoles that were fairly different from the usual ones: a couple large ones, some nearly transparent ones, and medium ones that were too small to be green frogs but too large to be peepers. And speaking of peepers, I now have a few, having caught some as tadpoles. Seems a cheap way to have caught some, but it's still neat. Today, I caught a tiny tadpole that is almost entirely a frog, but I am having a hell of a time figuring out what kind of frog it is; it has markings similar to how toads look when they first start morphing, except the overall coloration of those markings is vastly different and it is at least three times larger than a toad tadpole. He's also got the goofiest little mouth that seems way too big for his face and is constantly going blub blub blub, huge (for his size) lips flapping. It's hard to get a picture of him since he's skittish, likes the very bottom of the tank, and is tiny. Tadpoles are like little presents you have to wait a while to unwrap; you just don't know what they are until they're completely frogs.

Anyway, if that's all I had found there, that would be kind of lame. I was scooping about, not finding much except for the occasional strange looking tad, and had resolved myself to make one final scoop. I make resolutions such as that often, but my internal perseverance mainly just doesn't want to give up and continues to make excuses as to why I need to keep trying. But this time, it really was; the mudstench was getting to me, I was tired and sweaty, and it was time to get going. I scooped, tried to let out some of the mud, overcompensated and did some kind of strange back-scoop, and suddenly found myself with a strange circular creature in the net. I assumed it was a large water beetle again, which would've been neat in its own right, but on closer inspection: a tiny hatchling painted turtle.

Oh yes, there was something I had wanted to mention first. At some point, I had decided on a goal for the summer: catch either a snake, bullfrog, or baby turtle. I think that the only way I am really satisfied with the aquariums and terrariums is if I keep getting to see something new, or if I raise things from babies. Since all my stuff is wild caught, it's not so bad to be a little fickle; they're probably happier back where I had found them. Anyway, I had set this goal because I wanted to find something I hadn't kept in a tank before (or at least since I was a kid). And look at that; I've already found one! So I have since amended the goal: instead of or, it's and -- my next target is either a bullfrog or snake.

And speaking of bullfrogs: at that same pond, I did at least spot a large bullfrog. Well, 'spot' is perhaps a bit too strong a word. 'Experienced a humongous splash when he leapt into the water as I passed' is more accurate. It was so startling and so large a splash, I had my doubts it was even a frog, but after busying myself elsewhere, I snuck back up to the spot. I was standing right next to where I had seen it, and was carefully scanning the bank. Not carefully enough, because as I inched closer, from right below me, a squeak and a splash told me my eyes had failed me. Not surprising, as it was dusk by then and I was under a tree, but still! The old feeling of having failed came through again. I was close enough that I could've nabbed him with my tiny, portable net! So now, at some point I will try going back there just before dusk with a much bigger net and maybe even a flashlight too. Of course, I don't think I even could keep a frog of that magnitude; the largest green frog I have already seems too big for the 30 gallon tank, and generally folks don't recommend housing bullfrogs in aquariums because of their preposterous jumping abilities. If I had a house, I could construct an outdoor tank of some sort. I actually had something fit for a bullfrog when I was much younger, but I definitely wouldn't be able to get away with something like that here.

Anyway, back to turtles. After I had caught the baby painted turtle, a short while later I felt a deep compulsion to go back, with a bigger net. After all, the dude seemed positively fresh out of the egg, and if there's one like that, there's probably a whole litter as well. Perhaps it's greediness? But there were two points: for one, baby turtles can be eaten by practically anything, so it wouldn't hurt to raise a few somewhere safe, and for another, I was figuring multiple dudes would get along better than one by itself. The latter's probably just anthropomorphizing things, though. Regardless, after countless murky, rotten scoops of mud, I was ready to return home empty handed; they proved more elusive than I thought. Perhaps I just got lucky, or perhaps there weren't as many in there as I had thought. I was still in a turtle fervor, especially since when I first arrived at the pond, I found a large snapping turtle hanging out in the shallows, trying desperately to look like an ordinary rock. I was certainly not going to try to catch him, as I appreciate having all my fingers, and I really don't know what I would even do if I did manage it. I took innumerable 'last' scoops, and then went down to the larger pond. I made a circuit of it, found nothing, and rinsed the mud from my hands and net. Finding my way entirely around the thing, I was about to head to the car when I could've sworn I saw a turtle nose poking out of the water. Of course, my scoops were in vain, and I brought nothing up. But now I got my net muddy again, and I had to rinse it off. The best place to do it was on the island, as it had a little bridge connecting it, and it was easy to get to clear water from the bridge. Of course, if I was going to go out on the island, I may as well try some scoops out there. Yeah, I guess you know where this overly long story is going: I had exhausted all possibilities out there, and decided to try one last scoop at a little bundle of underwater plants that were about as far out as my long net would reach. I pulled it up, and there was a squirming, moderately sized turtle in the net!

As an aside, this whole 'last scoop' business is killing me. It's happened way too often now that I would catch something on my final one-last-try-and-I-give-up attempt. This definitely causes me to stay out a lot longer than I should!

Anyway, I had no idea what this turtle was that I caught. He wasn't tiny, but he wasn't big; probably about four inches? He was covered in algae growing right off his shell, and he had a pointy, yellow streaked nose. On the drive home, I kept searching my brains to try to figure out what kind he was, and for some reason I kept thinking he must be a musk turtle. Turns out, my subconscious brain is way smarter than I really can account for: I have never seen or caught a musk turtle before, but upon getting out the old field guide, that was precisely what he was. Turns out, that's as big as they get, and they can live up to 60 years. Kind of intense! But if that's as big as he's going to get, that meant that if I arrange my smaller tank well, it could work well enough for him for now.

Of course, to do that meant I had to let go all the fish I had in it. I had a catfish in there I had been raising since it was smaller than a tadpole, and it had since grown to be at least five or six inches long. He was a beast, and he acted like a shark. It was sad to let him go, and I tried to put it off by moving him to a fishbowl I hadn't yet had a use for, but he just seemed to absolutely hate the fishbowl so I let him loose. Besides, I've figured out the strategy for catching baby catfish in the stream near here; I catch so many accidentally, I could certainly start again with a new one later.

Alright, so this is certainly a rambling entry. Let's try to speed things up for the benefit of those still here.

Oh, well there really isn't much else to add concerning the small beasts, except that I managed to find yet another neat new creature in the mudpond. I was scooping haphazardly just to try my luck, and I noticed that one of the wriggling dudes I thought was a tadpole just didn't have the right profile. Examining closer, it was a newt in its larval stage! I have been lamenting for a while about how I don't understand why I haven't been able to find any newts anywhere around here, and looks like I finally found some. They are ridiculously tiny, with little frilly gills and big translucent tails. They don't have the long, slender shape of salamander larvae, and they look kind of like red spotted newts, so that's the most likely prediction. Newt larvae, it turns out, are just as difficult to identify as tadpoles.

Now: I've got an obscene amount of photos. I've got some really excellent shots of the little dudes, going back to last year or even further back. I've got a few concerts, and a BBQ, and pretty much everything. I really need to figure out a system that'll have me posting photos online more easily. Also, Firefox does not agree that 'online' is actually a word -- and don't give me your pedantic and stupid 'on-line', as that is unacceptable.

I wonder if my ISP would be ok with me setting up an FTP server on here...