Frog Bachelors
07.07.10
Every year after the first big rain in May and a rousting night of Froggy gone a courtin’, Mango Cottage’s goldfish pond is filled with various globs and strings of little black treasures inside little clear spheres. But this year, not so much. The rain came. There were froggy courtin’ sounds. But no eggs and no tadpoles.
We seem to have 2 bachelor frogs living in the pond (a southern leopard frog and the frog in the picture which I’ve not positively identified yet because it has conflicting characteristics). No girls, but not for the lack of the boys trying. Every night we hear the ‘Honey, Baby, Sugarpie’ calls of the boys, but no returning froggy girl giggles. It’s all rather sad.
Another thing missing this year is the Cuban treefrogs. Usually there are quite a number of them around, both seen and heard. This year, after a colder spell of winter than we’ve had in a while, I’ve neither seen nor heard a single one. After our cold spell when things warmed up a little I found a number of dead lizards and Cuban tree frogs around the place… and could smell many more. Perhaps nature is putting things back in balance.