a triangle lives here

frog day

Every year around this time, the frogs wake up. It's a raucous chorus and a delight and treat and I love it. We have a pond edging up to our property that's connected to a marsh that is connected to a copse (where I hunt morels). There was once a concrete wall/dock on the pond, but the wood has long rotten away and fallen apart, leaving only a divider between marsh and pond that is rather permeable.

I ramble down to the pond and commune with my friends, the frogs who very well may have been alive as long as I have lived here.[1] I like to wade/hop from grassy patch to grassy patch to get into the marsh and stand still long enough for them to get used to me; then I can prowl around and get quite close before they side-eye and stop singing (or swim off). Some are more nervous than others, but I can often get the camera within a foot or so! This year I also saw a bluegill gliding in one of the clear water pathways through the marsh grasses. I don't know that I've ever seen a wild fish not on a hook that clearly before! The angle of the sun was good, the water deeply clear, and I got a lovely window into its world. I couldn't get a good enough picture to share, which. Honestly makes it even more magical.

Please enjoy frog day twenty twenty-six. This day is so important to me I went so far as to even uploaded videos to youtube so you could hear them.

A toad pokes its head up out of a water/grass marsh mix. The sun glints off its nose and eyes A grassy marsh: bright green grass is in tufts, divided by brown grass and water. If you look VERY closely you can barely see a tiny frog near the center of the frame but it's so tiny you almost have to know it's there The lens nearly in the water, the shot shows a toad peeking out, balanced on a mat of grass just underneath the surface of the water A warty toad's back peeking out from blades of grass. Its right arm is jauntily resting on a bright green blade A closeup of a warty green toad. There is some lens distortion making the wet wet wet grass it is sitting on shimmer A toad trilling its call, air sac inflated. The thin bubble of skin is catching the light, emphasizing its delicate nature A toad nobly sitting in submerged grass, its proud nose and partially inflated air sac catching golden rays of sun

there's a couple more videos in this playlist too

  1. American Toads have long lifespans! In captivity they've lived for over 30 years. Truly delightful. ↩︎