August 16, 2011

     This is a sketch of a little American toad we found in the middle of the side walk one night. It just sat there unmoving and wouldn't budge when gently prodded, so we picked it up to see if it was okay. It was missing one eye and one knee was skinned bare, so we took it home, washed it up, and put a bit of antibiotic ophthalmic ointment in the missing eye socket and on the knee... it has healed up but it has pathetic bug-catching skills without binocular vision.     
     The plan is to feed him (let's just say him) up and let him go when he gets  better at catching bugs. That may take awhile. He hasn't improved much yet - but within two or three days of feeling enough better to come out of hiding he began to hop toward us begging bugs. He can eat a bug held for him, or one that walks over his left (blind side) foot. He flips the bug up with his foot while flipping out his tongue. For some reason, that doesn't work as well on the right side. Can you imagine having to wait for bugs to just walk over the correct front foot? He'd get pretty hungry out there! We do make him practice catching the provided bugs for himself some of the time.
    He's extremely cute; squat and round, and he moves in the endearingly awkward, abrupt way of toads. We've provided him with a name for the meantime - really a convenience for us. He's named Dispatch - which we hope he'll learn to do with bugs - and for short he's Patch, which I think is a cute name for a one-eyed toad. For now, he lives with my son's baby mud turtle, now named Pokey (see January 24th posting).