The Metropolitan Herpetological Society's first annual club picnic will be this coming Saturday, July 19th.  It will start at 1pm, and will take place at the Blue Heron Park Nature Center.  The picnic will include heroes, cold salads, hot dogs, hamburgers, and other foods.  There is a turtle race scheduled for 3pm and is followed by a frog hop contest at 4pm.  This event is free to club members.  Anyone who isn't a member but wishes to come to the event is asked to make a donation of their choice.

Gray treefrogs at one time were extirpated on Staten Island.  The species was no more in existence.  In a project by some parks officials, this beautiful species of treefrog was reintroduced.  I was aware that there were some on the island, but it was to my surprise that I heard the deafening trills of this hyla species singing in the pond off of Rockland Avenue last night after a long period of thunderstorms during the day.  Noel and I raced home to grab our waders, flashlights and cameras.  Along the way we contacted Doug and Deb Donnelly and quickly pursuaded them to join us back at the greenbelt in about a half hour. 

We walked for about 2 hours through Buck's Hollow and were amazed at what we found.  We spotted hundreds of gray treefrogs.  In fact, they were everywhere we turned.  We even spotted some in the bushes as we followed the trail around the woods.  We were glad to see that not only were they all over the place, but they in fact had been reproducing.  We spotted tadpoles all over the pond.  Some were green frog tadpoles, but we also spotted many gray treefrog tadpoles. 

I embedded a video of one of the gray treefrogs we found.  Not only were we luck enough to get many great photos, but we were also able to get some video footage of them calling.  Take a look!

Each month we will be putting together a small newsletter that will highlight everything that has gone on with the club in the previous month.  Anyone who is interested can subscribe to the newsletter on the Home page of our website, and that will add the email address to the mailing list that the newsletter is electonically mailed to.  Each newsletter will also available for reviewing on the website.  Any questions regarding the newsletter can be directed towards Billy Brenner, the site administrator, on the contact page.

What started out with a cancelled guest, ended with some happy members.  We adjusted on the fly and held a meeting in which the topic was how to create a cheap and simple naturalistic setup for small lizards, snakes, or amphibians.  We had a 10 gallon tank donated by me, and a 10 gallon tank with the screen top donated by Tom at Arcadia Pets.  We also purchased a few live plants to make the tank more natural, and to help hold humidity.  We had supplies (mesh screaning, pvc rings, and a grated sheet of plastic) to form a drainage system underneath the substrate so that it can retain enough water for humidity levels but release the excess into the bottom of the tank.

After the two tanks were created, they were raffled off with a frog inside.  Doug Donnelly was very generous to donate a red eyed treefrog & tomato frog to set up in the tank.  Howie Fischer also donated two okatee cornsnakes for us to raffle off to the members.

The prizes were extremely popular, and the winners were thrilled to take the complete setups home.