One Froggy Afternoon

[den]

I 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.

Comments

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

And when they land or jump, they always leave a rather WET "present"---

EEWWWWW!!!!

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Hobbes said something about that: "they sit around drinking water all day just in case someone picks them up."

Have the best

-=TK

[level-head.livejournal.com]

There is a certain mindset that impels one to make the moist of any opportunity.

===|==============/ Level Head

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to cast a wet towel on things, but that was a pretty soggy pun.

Have the best

-=TK

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

As a kid on a farm I was always catching the big green tree frogs which are the size of a cigarette packet. Invariably I'd open a hand to show someone, and almost always I'd have cold, clammy hands clinging to my face. I thought it was funny and never once when "Ew!"

Oh, and happy birthday!

[jim-lane.livejournal.com]

"Cold and clammy hands" is not the problem; it's when the little brainless bas'tids PEE all over me that makes me go "Eeeewwww!!!"

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!)

[kayshapero]

Snerk! Maybe the two definitions of "Wild Life" are not so dissimilar after all. :)

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.