Mom and I went exploring at the National Wildlife Visitor Center. Alongside the bank of Lake Redington we found perched on a lily pad a tiny brown frog. In the water there was a sea of floating lily pads, a scattering of them had glassy droplets of water on the surface. As we sat and visited our new little frog friend, a spider larger than he was walked over and joined him.
We walked into the forest for a while. The air is hot, sticky and smells like decomposing leaves and mushroom spores. There are colorful mushrooms on fallen logs and sprouting like fireworks out of the ground. As we came to a grassy field, black field crickets (Gryllus pennsylvanicus) hopped out of our way with each step we took. Dramkon would love it here! Its hot and full of yummy crickets to eat! I can see adult crickets 3cm long (5cm long if you include the ovipositor) chewing on a dried flower stalk.
As we walked back to the visitor center we stopped again to visit our little brown frog friend and found that instead of crickets hopping in the grass there were lots more tiny frogs! I counted at least six of them and they were each a new color pattern, ranging from mocha and speckled to a mossy green.
Patuxent Research Refuge
Laurel, MD
9/27/11
Walkabout 
DC’s encyclopedia is not available in soft copy format. Scanning is quite impossible because of its hefty size. You can take Hard copy from me and get it photocopied.