Tiny Neighbors

 At this time of year we have more than our usual population of nature’s tiny creatures all around our neighborhood.

There are little tree frogs everywhere; they love to populate the windows at night waiting for mosquitos that are attracted by the light inside the house. Even though they leave tiny little frog poops on the windowsills, we welcome them knowing that they are insect eaters.  When we have rain, their chorus of frog songs brightens the sounds of the evening as darkness comes.

We have multitudes of Green Anole lizards.  Yesterday I saw a little cluster of four babies dashing across the deck.  Like many lizards, they change color depending on the surrounding colors of the background ranging from bright green to gray and brown.  But, their eyes are always blue and the little sack under their chin is always reddish.

There are lots of crabs of differing sizes on the island.  The ones with the delicious meat are the blue crabs. They ate mostly in the Sound waters are are normally caught there.  We also have multitudes if Ghost Crabs.  They scurry all over the beach digging holes and disappearing into them, but they also appear anywhere on the island.  They quickly “crab” along sideways to avoid getting caught.  We are in a living ecosystem and all these critters are indicators of biological healthiness.