One Froggy Afternoon
13 August 2005 15:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
denI wandered into the grocery shop carrying a plastic container and a latex glove. The bloke behind the counter gave me a funny look, but nodded in understanding when I said I was from WIRES and had come to rescue the frog. I've rescued green tree frogs before, mostly from inside people's toilets, and simply let them go outside. This one was different. It had travelled from Tully in North Queensland, hitching a ride in a bunch of bananas. Letting it go into the bush here was out of the question. The frog wasn't native to this area and wouldn't survive the cold.
Technically it should go back to where it came from, but it's a frog. I'm all for native amphibians and think there should be more of them. But... frog. It would have to go into permanant care.
THe store owner handed me a styrofoam box large enough for 2 dozen oranges, and opened the lid. All I could see were the scattered remains of some celery tops. "It's escaped" I said.
He glanced in and said "No, there it is." I looked at the celery tops for a moment, then the owner reached into the box and pointed. There, almost entirely covered by the end of his finger, was a green tree frog. A tiny, tiny little thing, all crouched and flattened against a leaf. I put on my latex glove*, had the grocer spritz it with water, and picked up the frog. I placed it in my container. It looked forlorn, a little green spot in the middle of a plastic container. The grocer tore a lettuce leaf in half and dropped it in. A few moments later a webbed hand appeared around the edge of the leaf, and the frog climbed on top. I closed the lid.
One of my fellow rescuers specializes in amphibians, so it was off to Liz's place for little froggy. On the way there he must have felt safe because he let out a noisy call. Unfortunately a constable was leaning in the window giving me a breath test at the time.
"What was that?" he asked. I explained about the frog and he wanted to see it. I opened the lid of the container, the constable leaned closer, and the frog made a perfect 4-point landing on the left lens of the officer's sunglasses. I removed the sunnies and carefully shook the frog back onto the lettuce leaf. The officer was laughing as he waved me off.
Now little froggy is ensconsed in a clean terrarium, with a water dish, some ferns and a life-times supply of tiny crickets and baby meal worms. He seems to be unharmed by his long journey and run-in with the law.
Photos to come.
*Acids in our skin can harm frogs.
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 06:01 (UTC)Nice work bats. Even though frogs are evil conniving little buggers.
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 06:08 (UTC)no subject
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 07:17 (UTC)Rock on Batty!
Mako
What's with the cops there?
Date: 13 Aug 2005 07:24 (UTC)What do you get pulled over for? Is security really that tight in your country?
BTW, I love your journal too ~ I'm so glad I added you long ago....
Re: What's with the cops there?
Date: 13 Aug 2005 08:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2005 07:45 (UTC)I'm surprised they found it in a bunch of bananas and not a tarantula!
~Everybody looooves that Michigan raaaaaaaaaaaaaag~
(Obscure Bugs Bunny reference to a certain frog)
no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2005 07:55 (UTC)Highly deadly blank taranch'la!
Daylight come and me wan' go home!
0/!
Hehe.
Batty, I'm impressed that the grocer even noticed the frog, it's so tiny! I wonder how many more have come your way unnoticed?
Waydigo on the rescue!
Have the best
-=TK
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 19:26 (UTC)Ignore the pornography references. (http://www.songcrossfire.com/harry_belafonte-banana_boat_song.php)
I have a hard time imagining a grocer calling an animal rescue service over a small frog. Are there so few small frogs in that part of the country that this was immediately recognized as a non-native species?
===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 19:37 (UTC)Thanks. :)
Remind me sometime to share with you an incredibly funny version of this song performed by Stan Freeberg, if you haven't enjoyed it already.
Have the best
-=TK
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 20:24 (UTC)http://povonline.com/cols/COL051.htm
===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 21:27 (UTC)Have the best
-=TK
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 23:45 (UTC)no subject
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 19:30 (UTC)===|==============/ Level Head
Frogs
Date: 13 Aug 2005 07:56 (UTC)Re: Frogs
Date: 13 Aug 2005 11:02 (UTC)I'm curious about how you found my journal.
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 14:21 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Aug 2005 17:00 (UTC)Unfortunately they DO like to stick to peoples' faces.
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 18:58 (UTC)EEWWWWW!!!!
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 19:39 (UTC)Have the best
-=TK
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 20:42 (UTC)===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 13 Aug 2005 21:27 (UTC)Have the best
-=TK
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Date: 14 Aug 2005 00:10 (UTC)Oh, and happy birthday!
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Date: 14 Aug 2005 00:48 (UTC)About 45 years ago I was sitting in the living room of a fancy glass-walled two-story house deep in the country (owned by an elderly cousin). It was mid-evening, summertime, and the house was air-conditioned (a luxury at the time, but then this house, in today's dollars and real estate market, would be considered an exotic million-dollar+ "country hideaway".
As a rugrat I was wearing regular cotton pajamas, sitting a chair watching TV with my parents. Suddenly a little green tree frog popped up through a "weep hole" in the track of one of the sliding glass walls (it's amazing the tiny holes those things can squeeze through) and it proceeded to purposefully hop in a perfectly straight line all the way across the room (a good 15 feet from the glass wall)---to hop and climb right up the INSIDE of my pajama leg!
I screamed and jumped up, and quickly skinned off the pajamas in a panic to get the COLD, WET frog off my leg!
Little varmit was unceremoniously tossed out into the grass, where I indignantly hoped a wandering fox/owl/raccoon would give it the demise it so richly deserved...
The whole scene was like something from a "funniest home videos" segment---but of course that was decades before home video cameras were even dreamed of.
(And thanks for the birthday wishes!)
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Date: 16 Aug 2005 21:12 (UTC)Reminds me of the time I was innocently reading a book in the bathtub when a daddylonglegs spider decided to descend unnoticed from the ceiling, then run out onto me and straight into the bathtub. I managed to avoid dropping the book in the water, whilst rescuing the idiot spider. Put the beastie on a piece of tp until it dried out and wandered off into the corner where it belonged.
I do like North America. Most of our spiders are non-venomous (or at least effectively so for humans), and the same can be said for the snakes.
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Date: 14 Aug 2005 00:14 (UTC)Happy birthday to you! I missed it the other day.
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Date: 14 Aug 2005 01:04 (UTC)We still get a fair amount of wildlife wandering through the neighborhood, mostly at night, and a few weeks ago I came home from work after 6pm and "surprised" an adult raccoon who was plundering on my tiny back porch. The 'coons can be heard squalling and squabbling with the neighborhood cats from time to time, and we have to keep tight lids on our trash cans. During acorn season we've heard/seen deer happily dining under the oak tree in the front yard late at night, and we have bumper crops of pesky gray squirrels every year.
Used to despise the squirrels, but now I enjoy their brainless antics; also the relatively recent increase in the anole population. Funny little lizards, both macho and gutless at the same time, doing "bad-ass push-ups" and displaying their red throat blades at us humans---then running like thieves to "escape" when they suddenly realize we're NOT impressed by their shows of bravado. If they were the size of wolves we'd be in MAJOR trouble---
House wrens, mocking birds, doves, hawks, owls---we have birds of some sort all the time, year-round.
I'd go crazy living in a large, sterile city...
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Date: 14 Aug 2005 04:13 (UTC)I used to catch frogs and toads when I was younger.The best one was in Colorado on vacation. I found an ugly species of american frog that looked exactly like the dark muddy ground around the mountain lake. I left it alone. It was good to know there were frogs at that elevation for some reason:D. I can't even catch Kermit much any more since they stopped running The Muppet Show.
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