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.