365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Friday, February 5, 2016
Frog Patrol
Day 115: I'm of the considered opinion that frog-stalking is more difficult than it was when I was a youngster. Either the little buggers are more sensitive to ground vibrations or I walk with a heavier tread these day, but whatever the reason, I seem to instigate a great commotion of splashes in the bogs long before I've laid eyes on a single frog.
I heard the first evidence of froggy frolics in a ditch beside the Bud Blancher Trail about ten days ago. It could have been a stick or fir cone dropping into the water, but for the fact that the splash was accompanied by an unmistakable chirp. When I next had occasion to approach a known "frog hollow," I was a good ten feet away when half a dozen alarms sounded from amphibian throats, and all I saw to confirm the existence of frogs were the ripples among the duckweed leaves. My next foray was done with great stealth, leading to this photo and my first actual sighting of the year. There's not much to go on with respect to making an identification beyond "Frog," so forgive me the omission of my customary scientific nomenclature. "Frog" will have to do for now.
Labels:
duckweed,
frog,
Pack Forest
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