Save our invasives!

[TomK]

I'm now thinking of a recipe for coqui sausages. I can get the HP sauce in there along with the baked beans but am at a bit of a loss as to how to include Branstons.

Incidentally, I love the way this thread went from saving invasives to how to cook 'em!

[punafish]

Speaking of invasives...

It's finally raining! In the past (especially after a drought) the rain would prompt an immediate chorus of coquis, even in the middle of the day. Well, it's raining pretty steadily here in HS right now, and I'm not hearing a peep, not even one. Did the drought kill off the coquis? Or did Sid Singer finally repatriate them all back to Puerto Rico?

[julieb]

Leilani coquis are alive and vocal.

[shockwave rider]

We have had only 1 vocal froggy who only occasionally whistles since the December cold spell. The jungle lot next door to us has usually had a very loud frog chorus but is silent now. Even when we had that one brief period of rain we didn't get any coqui song. I've really been enjoying the crickets we now hear instead.

[rainyjim]

Do coquis have any negative effect on the ecosystem?

Like did they displace anything?

[punafish]

I can hear them now in HS, but there are a lot less.

[MarkP]

Drizzling here in Eden Roc and I can hear the coquis. Depends on who you ask about whether they have any negative effect. They're tiny but in large numbers they do eat a lot. Lots of little buggies from the litter on the ground, many of which are native and food for other native insects so that would be a negative. One would think that they would at least eat mosquitoes but I understand not so much. One concern is that they would be delightful and nourishing snacks for other undesirables like rats and mongooses whose numbers would then swell to the detriment of native birds but a study was done in Lava Tree State Park where rats and mongooses were trapped and their stomach contents were examined did not show many frogs being eaten.

[shockwave rider]

I wonder if higher wetter areas will have greater survival rates through this drought and lower hotter areas will have fewer. However, all the coquis here spread from just a few importation points, so at best we are only getting a temporary reprieve.

[TomK]

Agreed, Shock. Even if the coquis have died off in certain areas because of the drought, and I don't even know if that's true, they'll just come right back once the drought breaks. I hear them off in the distance just like I did many years ago before they arrived and became uncontrollable.

Rainyjim's post got me thinking though. Before the coquis arrived at my place, I used to have several spiders around the house. Forgive me for not knowing what they were called, but there was a spider that spun incredibly sticky webs all over the yard and there were the yellow and black garden spiders with enormous but beautiful webs on the lanai. They looked mean but were harmless.

Neither species of spider are here now (that is, in my yard), and their disappearance happened shortly after the coquis arrived.

Can't say for sure the coquis are responsible, correlation is not always causation, but it got me wondering.

[punafish]

Sounds to me like the herd has been culled a bit. The bad news is the drought-resistant coquis survived and spent all last night passing on their genes to the next generation. Of course they'll be back.

The coquis chirped all night but only when it got dark. It's still raining in HS but I'm not hearing a peep. The day chirpers seem to have gone missing!