toad

First Visit to Voorhees Nature Preserve by Todd Henson

Instead of a hike my father and I decided to take a short day trip down along the Northern Neck of Virginia. We’d expected to just drive around and perhaps stop and check out a few locations for future exploration, but we ended up spending more time than expected at our first stop, the Voorhees Nature Preserve, a great little location managed by The Nature Conservancy.

Intro to Voorhees

Voorhees Nature Preserve is a fairly small tract of land 729 acres in size. It’s easy enough to get to, though parking is limited, so be aware you may not find parking if you arrive at a popular time. In our case we were the only visitors, which is always nice. There is a single trail heading away from the parking area and into the woods. It’s a reasonably wide and level trail and because of this we decided to walk down it a ways and see what we could see. We’d not really planned to hike, but why not get a better feel for the location? The weather was nice and there weren’t any crowds.

The trail entering Voorhees Nature Preserve

We visited a day or two after some heavy storms had moved through the area, and not far in the trail turned into a small pond, completely submerged in water. But before turning around we noticed how there was a side trail that appeared to move around this section, which made us think this area is often muddy and water-logged. Unfortunately, as is common in these sorts of situations, there were plenty of insects flying around us, many being mosquitos. Because we’d not planned a hike we hadn’t thought to bring any bug spray.

Even before entering we found this tiny mushroom near the parking area. It’s likely some species of amanita.

We continued along a couple more short detour trails before the elevation went up enough that the trail remained dry, at which point the trail split. To the left was a trail to a pond and to the right was a trail to the Rappahannock River. For this trip we chose the trail to the pond. One day we hope to return and try the river trail.

Toads Along the Path

A young Fowler’s toad that almost appears to be attempting to hide under a small tree sprout.

The first thing we noticed after taking the left trail were the huge numbers of very small toads all along the path. We must have passed dozens and dozens of them and had to be very careful not to step on any. They were hanging out all over the leaf strewn trail and started quickly hopping away as we approached. Because we’d not expected to hike I’d only brought along my wider angle lens, a 16-35mm zoom. But here we were with some great little macro subjects. Thankfully, this lens has a reasonably close minimum focusing distance, so I bent down and did my best to capture some photos of the toads, getting within a foot of them when they’d let me (many wouldn’t). I did also see a small frog, but it hopped much faster and further so I wasn’t able to photograph it.

A small toad atop some bark and leaves.

A more colorful tiny toad, almost orange, easily blends into the leaves.

We were fascinated by the coloration of some of these toads. Some were more brown, others more orange. And yet I believe they were all of the same species, Fowler’s toads. It’s possible some may have been Eastern American toads, as it can be a little difficult (for me, at least) to tell the difference when they’re this small and haven’t yet fully developed some of the markers that differentiate them (numbers of warts on spots, size of warts on the calf, spots on their underside which I can’t typically see when they’re this small).

A tiny orange toad. I was fascinated by the color schemes of these toads.

Another tiny toad, this time perched atop a small fallen limb.

Near the pond, though, we did see what I believe to be an Eastern American toad, this one an adult. Look closely at the first photo below and see if you can locate the toad as I first saw it, hiding in one of the hollows of the tree roots. I then slowly moved up very close, hoping it wouldn’t disturb the toad. Thankfully, it patiently allowed me to get right up in its face and create the second photograph. In that one you can see some of the spots on the underside which lead me to believe it’s an Eastern American and not a Fowler’s toad.

Look closely. Can you find the toad?

Why hello, there! It’s what I believe is an adult Eastern American toad, hanging out on the tree.

Ghost Pipes Peeping Up

A small cluster of ghost pipes, a wildflower lacking chlorophyll.

I stumbled upon a single grouping of wildflowers on the trail, ones I don’t see all that often but that’re very distinct from most. In fact, they doen’t even look like flowers but more like fungi of some sort. The reason is that ghost pipes lack chlorophyll and thus are white. They don’t use photosynthesis, instead drawing nutrients from the soil and a particular fungi they have a parasitic relationship with. They may not be the most attractive wildflowers but they are fascinating. And they’re sometimes easy to overlook as they often rise right out of the leaf little, as these are.

Favorite Find: Red-spotted Newt

A first view of a red-spotted newt on the trail.

My favorite find of the hike was a small red-spotted newt resting on the leaf litter on the trail. This was beautiful timing as I’d just been telling my father the previous weekend how much I’d love to find and photograph some salamanders or newts, that I’d never found any while hiking. And here we found one right on the trail.

I moved as close as my 16-35mm lens would let me while still staying in focus, which was within a foot of the newt.

Not having run into this species before I wasn’t sure how fast they moved, and being used to lizards I was worried it would quickly disappear. So I started photographing from far away, which made the newt fairly small in the frame at only 35mm. But I slowly moved closer, lowering myself down to the ground, leaning the camera on the ground and inching closer and closer one little bit a time, hoping to get very close without disturbing the newt. Thankfully, that’s exactly what happened. And when it did begin moving it was pretty slow, so either they are slow moving creatures or this one just wasn’t very bothered by us. I have much research still to do on these beautiful little newts. I hope you enjoy these photos. I was so very excited to create them, and hope one day I’ll find another when I have a longer focal length lens with me.

The red-spotted newt turned and began very slowly moving off the trail.

A final side view of the red-spotted newt before we moved on and left it in peace.

Peering at the Pond

A view of the pond from the end of the trail.

We knew we were approaching the pond because we began to see more light through the trees up ahead and to the sides. And the trail began going down hill at a somewhat steep decline, though thankfully not too steep for us. At the end of the trail was a small wooden bench, as there had been in one other location between the fork and here. The water level appeared low but I don’t know what it typically is. There was plenty of greenery down at the surface and we watched as birds moved around down there. We saw a couple belted kingfishers chasing one another. After a short rest here we headed back to the car.

Lesson Learned: Chigger Bites ITCH!!!

When we were back in the car and driving away I mentioned to my father that one of the things I disliked about hiking trails with lots of flying and biting insects was how I always felt little small itches all over afterwards, likely a psychosomatic effect. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized this time wasn’t psychosomatic at all. I found bug bites all along my ankles and up and down both legs, around the bottom of my stomach and my lower back. I counted over 50 bites, and let me tell you each one was itching worse than most of the mosquito bites I’ve had. I did a little research and learned I’d stumbled into a batch of chiggers, little tiny mite larvae too small to see. When these bite they inject digestive enzymes into the skin and slurp up the slurry that forms, kind of like spiders do, which makes sense as both are arachnids.

Thankfully in these parts chiggers are just an annoyance. They apparently don’t carry disease the way mosquitoes or ticks do. But in return for that their bites itch more and last longer. Beautiful compromise, right? I’ve included a couple photos of one ankle where there’s a small cluster of bites. These are fairly small. Many of the bites further up the leg were about twice the width of these. The first photo shows what they looked like the day after the hike, when I first noticed them. And the second show what they looked like 4 days later. By the 4th day they looked worse but didn’t itch as much. Now, a week later, the bites are still very visible but slowly fading and no longer itch. To lessen the itching I tried medicated calamine lotion first (ingredients: calamine 8%, pramoxine hydrochloride 1%) and this seemed to help. Then my father found another itch cream that worked really well (ingredients: diphenhydramine hydrochloride 2%, zinc acetate 0.1%). I put it on in the morning and at night.

Chigger bites on my ankle the morning after the hike. They’ve begun to itch like crazy.

Chigger bites on my ankle 4 days later. They itched like crazy for 2-3 days, but by the 4th day they looked worse than they felt.

So what was the lesson I learned from this? Keep a bottle of bug spray in the car, not just in your packs that you might not bring along on “non-hiking” day trips.

Despite the run-in with chiggers I had a great time hiking the trails of Voorhees Nature Preserve and I’d very much like to return and try the other trail. I’ve no clue whether seeing toads is a common occurrence here or whether we just happened to arrive at the right time to find all these toads scattering and going their own way. But I’m glad we saw them all, and that we ran into the red-spotted newt. Even without these things it would have been an enjoyable hike, but with them it was even better.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at our first trip to Voorhees Nature Preserve. Do you have any small nature preserves near you? And if so have you visited them? If not get out there and check them out (but bring some bug spray! 😁).


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Approaching a Small Toad by Todd Henson

How do you approach a small animal, like this little toad?

Approaching a small, skittish animal requires patience. I start photographing further away just to assure I get a shot. And don’t forget creating wide angle images of wildlife in the landscape can be just as appealing as close-up portraits. But today we’re talking about trying to get closer for that nice portrait shot.

First you have to assess whether it’s even safe to consider moving closer. You don’t want to risk the welfare of either the wildlife or yourself. In the example today, of this small toad, there weren’t any major concerns.

Approaching wildlife is most often a very slow process.

Small subjects can easily be frightened by us as we’re so much larger than they. So it can sometimes help to get as close to eye-level with them as possible. Granted, you’ll never be able to be at the same level as this little toad, but you can get down on the ground, lying flat if you can, to lessen your profile and appear smaller than you are.

It’s often recommended you don’t make eye contact with wildlife as that can spook them or cause them to become aggressive, seeing it as a challenge. I don’t know if that applies to small amphibians. 😃

Make small moves and move slowly and quietly.

The key to getting close is to move slowly and quietly. The hope is the animal will almost get used to us, seeing us as just another part of the background, not a threat. You can see in the sequence of images of the toad I very slowly moved closer, and each time I repositioned I created an image. I was using a fixed focal length lens (105mm) so there was no zooming with the lens. If I wanted a closer portrait I needed to get physically closer to the toad.

Pause every so often to help let the creature get used to you.

And you will discover there’s always a hidden line the subject will consider too close. If you cross that line the subject will move away (or worse if it’s a predator, which I wouldn’t recommend approaching anyway). Where that line is will vary from species to species and even animal to animal. I try very hard not to cross that line as that most often means the end of my opportunity to photograph that subject. But in the case of this little toad I knew it was very likely at some point it would begin hopping away. So until then I did the best I could to capture closeups.

With a little luck, patience and practice you’ll get close enough for a nice close-up portrait.

Eventually, the toad had enough of me and began hopping away. I was able to capture one more image of it after the first hop. I liked how it had landed with its rear leg and foot raised just a bit sitting on a leaf. After creating this image I slowly backed off and left the little toad in peace.

One final view of the toad before leaving it in peace.

Just a quick technical note, for those interested. This was early enough in the morning and under enough tree cover to be fairly dark. I was hand holding the camera, helping me stay nimble and presenting less visible bulk in view of the toad. To get a shutter speed fast enough to avoid most blur I had to boost the ISO to 4000. This means there is some level of noise in these photos, especially in the darker portions. But I thought getting the shots was worth the potential noise, and it was also a fun exercise in approaching a small animal.


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Eastern American Toad on the Trail by Todd Henson

Front angled view of an eastern American toad

I’ve mentioned before to look down once in a while when hiking in the woods, that you never know what you might see. In this case we saw an eastern American toad almost hidden on the trail. These are fairly common in this area, but it’s still always great to see one, especially when it’s patient enough to let me photograph it.

We found this toad in a wetlands park on a trail through woods that border the wetlands. A perfect environment for it, but being in the woods it was fairly dark. So I had to boost my ISO to 2000 - 4000 to have a fast enough shutter speed, and even with that these photos were shot between 1/25 and 1/40 of a second. This toad was fairly calm, though, which made things a little easier. It’s always nice having a cooperative subject.

Side view of an eastern American toad

I tried to photograph it from a variety of angles to capture as many details as I could for later identification. I’m not an expert at identifying wildlife so I’m always trying to learn more, and one thing I’ve learned is to capture as many details as possible while in the field. In this area the American toad can be confused with the Fowler’s toad, and apparently these species can hybridize, which makes a positive identification more challenging.

After consulting several field guides and online resources I believe this to be an American toad. It has a single wart in most of the dark patches on its back, which is indicative of an American toad. Fowler’s toads tend to have 3 to 7 warts in each patch. In the front view you can see some dark spots on its underside, again indicative of an American toad.

Back view of an eastern American toad

If you think I’ve misidentified this toad please leave a comment and let me know what you think it is and why. Thanks.


Resources

The resources below contain affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. This is at no extra cost to you.

Websites

Virginia Herpetological Society

Books

I own the following 3 books, though my editions may be older than those shown. I love Charles Fergus’ book, Wildlife of Virginia and Maryland and Washington, D.C. It’s not a field guide and only contains drawings of some of the wildlife, but it has lots of information on the species that live in this area. The Peterson and Audubon Field Guides are my current go to guides.