When Mom first stepped out the back door this morning, after a night of heavy rain, she was met with this toad standing near our mat.
This is about the darkest toad I've ever seen. I suppose there is some camouflage to it but this guy (a sexist remark, not a scientific fact) looks almost like black leather. When I found him late in the afternoon he had made himself home beneath a metal watering can with an indented bottom, just high enough to give him access through a dent. I lifted the can off him and he just blinked but didn't move. As I brought the wide-eyed camera lens ever closer, he sat still.We seem to find one of these amphibians every spring and then later find a desiccated body somewhere about the base of the house. Maybe this will be the year where we'll see one survive.
In any case, we've named him "Horny Toad" and think of the movie "Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou".
