The Name At The Top

I know the name at the top of the page says 'Fish and Frog - Turtle and Blog' but I must confess we haven't had very many frog posts lately. In fact we haven't had any since the early part of summer when we had tadpoles and tiny frogs by the hundreds (or more likely thousands). There's a good reason for that. We just haven't seen a lot of frogs, at least not the sizable ones.

Of course we saw the odd toad fairly frequently during the summer. Most of those were in the woods or near our houses, not near the pond.
And we continued to see the really tiny frogs along the edge of the pond all the time. I must admit I was a bit surprised by this. They do not seem much bigger than they were when we originally saw hundreds of them months ago, but I see they actually have grown some when I compare them to the earlier photographs. I just expected them to grow a bit larger.
But as for the larger frogs, we just haven't seen many despite the fact that we saw lots of the large tadpoles during the spring. During the early summer we would listen to their mating calls in the evening and could distinguish several different species. Those calls slowly faded away for the most part within a month or so.

I was sure there were some larger frogs around. I could see them from a distance as they jumped into the pond upon my approach. But sneaking up on them for a shot was another matter. Now over the past few weeks I've begun to see a few of them up close.

There was this little guy settled comfortably in the mud along the edge of the water. Larger than the others, but still not what I was looking for. I'm still a little curious about what he was planning to do with that sword-looking stick he has his left front leg wrapped around.

Then a few days ago I found this guy below. Finally, a larger, more interesting frog. Nice patterns and very clean. Out in the open. A good subject if ever there was one.

He just sat there for me as I approached. He even stayed motionless as I sat down cross-legged right before him to take a few shots. Finally he jumped into a small bit of grass which prevented a good clean view. I figured I would use my hand to ease him back out of the grass and into the open so I could get a different angle for a clean shot.
Well he had other ideas. Rather than go where he should go he decided to hop right up in my lap. Now I'm sure that would have made a great video with me trying to squirm around and free the frog (that was now falling between my legs) while not squashing him flat. He was moving a little too fast for me to catch him with my left hand while holding the camera in my right.

And then he disappeared. He just vanished. We never knew where he went, but you can be sure I was soon standing upright and checking things out considering I had on a pair of rather loose-fitting shorts at the time and I wasn't ready for any sudden surprises. Now I'm not afraid of frogs or anything like that, but in my opinion there are certain limits that don't need to be crossed in this communing with nature stuff.