Maintaining a pool comes with its own set of unique challenges. So far I have had to contend with spiders, bees, salamanders, and little frogs. This weekend, my challenge was to defeat the toad king!

Seriously, this guy startled me a little bit when I lifted the cover off the skimmer and saw him staring up at me. He was huge! He was the length of my middle finger, not counting his legs. He stayed on the edge of the basket while I lifted it out and set it aside. Then, while I was vacuuming the pool, he crawled down inside for a nap. I had to gently encourage him to leave the basket once I was done cleaning the pool.

This is an Eastern American Toad, and apparently he's about as big as it gets for that species. I'm sure over the coming years I will discover all sorts of strange animals in the back yard... they definitely keep me on my toes!

Technical details: This photo was taken with my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 75mm, ISO 100, f/8 for 1/60th of a second.