Thursday, September 21, 2006

Toad herding: A photo narrative

Sunday we went to Sydney's family reunion on her mother's side, the Staffords and Stafford descendants, which is held in the Town Park pavilion in Rich Creek, Va. While setting up, Sydney's relatives found one of the picnic tables already occupied by a large toad. By the time we arrived, the toad had been moved out of the way, hidden in the corner behind a trash can, where I took this photo of it. The photo, alas, gives no sense of scale, but this was a big toad.Because we worried the toad would get stepped on or otherwise injured, we decided it needed to be carried across the park, toward the woods. Sydney's mother, Fran Bowling, is a retired elementary-school teacher and therefore a veteran wrangler of wildlife, so she matter-of-factly scooped the toad onto a paper plate. The toad was too big for the plate, though, so Fran wound up herding the reluctant toad toward the woods, away from the pavilion.Impatient, Sydney's Uncle Pat Sartin finally snatched up the toad bare-handed and carried it a reasonable distance out of harm's way. So lightning-quick were his actions that no camera could record them, but I later got this photo of Pat, triumphant.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great pics. Takes me back to the snapping turtle we relocated in Georgia.--Brett