What a frog!

Actually it's a toad---an Eastern Spadefoot to be exact. Also, just so you know, he's much neater looking in real life than the picture makes him out to be. His lines are kind of a flourescent yellow/lime green color which the picture doesn't do justice to.
We accidentally dug him up while trying to extract a post that was randomly placed in the middle of our pasture (not by us). Luckily we didn't kill him in the process.
The spade foot is so called because of a special horned "spade like" claw on the hind leg to help it dig it's burrows with. We thought at first that it was a Couch's Spadefoot which is recognizable by it's call which sounds "like a bleat of a lamb". How funny we thought since we have lambs! We did though figure out that it wasn't a Couch's but an Eastern. The Eastern has a call described as "the coarse low pitched complaint of a crow". Well, not quite as interesting sounding as the other. No matter the sound of it's call, it will eat bugs and slugs which is a plus however you look at it. They also said this bit of information in our amphibians and reptiles identification book which I thought was interesting: Eastern Spadefoot have been observed, unscathed amid the smoldering ashes of a brush fire.
Neat.
Well---if I have a brush fire because of this extended drought---more than likely this toad will make it through o.k. Hahahaha