Dead Man's Pond ~ Looking for Amphibians

This month, the topics for the Outdoor Hour Challenge from the Handbook of Nature Study blog are reptiles and amphibians. 

We have been learning about amphibians and reptiles that can be found on Prince Edward Island. I found MacPhail Woods' website full of information on this subject. Celeste and I spent a good part of an afternoon reading and looking at photos on each amphibian and reptiles that are found here. 

I wrote the lists on the notebook pages. There are only three snakes and nine amphibians. 

Reptiles: Garter snake, smooth green snake, and red-bellied snake. 

Amphibians: wood frog, leopard frog, pickerel frog, green frog, spring peeper, American toad, red-back salamander, yellow-spotted salamander, red-spotted salamander, blue-spotted salamander. 

There are no turtles on the island. We learned that last year when we first visited Victoria Park and went on a nature guided walk. We were surprised to find that out. We often saw turtles in Ontario. 

We read a great library book on reptiles by Jim Arnosky "Slither and Crawl". Celeste really liked the big fold-out pages with life-size reptiles drawings! 

We also found two books at home on reptiles that we started reading. 

The Nature Connection book has a nice double page on reptiles and amphibians with drawings. 

Speaking of drawings, we will try our hand at drawing a frog next week, following the instructions found in the OHC newsletter. Also, before the end of the month, we plan on visiting a pet store and get a closer look at the snakes or amphibians. 

Did you notice the green bookmark on the last photo? It was given to us last year at Victoria Park. We were there to celebrate Charlottetown's birthday and went on the nature guided walk through the park then. We were introduced to the yellow spotted salamander (top in the photo below) but I didn't take any photos. Hopefully we will see more soon and I will have my camera ready! 

Dead Man's Pond is in Victoria Park in Charlotetown. The City of Charlottetown website mentions the mystery and stories associated with this pond, but no details. I found this research with three stories interesting. 

We didn't see any salamander or frog eggs this time, but we did see two ducks, female Mallard ducks I think. They kept a safe distance from us as we walked around the edge of the pond. The surface was still covered by ice in some parts, but we could see under the water some of the lilly pads where the ice had already melted. 

We will visit the pond again next week. We both hope the ice will be gone by then and that maybe we will see eggs! 

This post is linked to the Outdoor Hour Challenge Blog Carnival hosted by Barb from Handbook of Nature Study. 

I'm also linking to The Real Thing with the Coake Family. She has the cutest AG doll ideas. I know completely unrelated but I like to think I might inspire someone to do more nature study and/or spend time in nature...