The Allure of the Nocturnal Chorus

Last night after returning from a pleasant dinner with friends, I took a quick walk through the garden as dusk approached.

Funny, I have to do it or I’m not settled for the night; even if there is no pressing task to do and nothing really needs checking. These quickie trips often seem to provide for the more interesting and unexpected results; it seems that I always notice more when I am looking for nothing.

The one “task” I had on yesterday evening’s walk-about was to double check the blackberry netting to make sure the same not-so-bright young robin had not trapped herself inside for the 3rd time in 24 hours. (Apparently the instinct to hunt above wormy ground is sufficient to make this bird push under the bottom of the net, which also happens to be fairly well secured to the ground with assorted bricks, boards and the like.) Thankfully she was not there and my mind wandered off into survey mode.

As I was standing in the boxwood garden trying to get a feel for how I should go about reconfiguring the strawberry beds in the area, the tree frogs began their quadraphonic signaling on the approach to the pond, undoubtedly for another raucous night of frog-orgy bliss.

Behind me the Camellia let out a very loud and high pitched salvo to start the night. The sweet autumn clematis on the fence behind the pond responded. The bamboo behind Lizzie’s followed and soon there were frog bleats (or calls or?) sounding from 360 degrees at varying distances from ground zero.

Then it all stopped as quickly as it started. Silence…..

As I turned to look again at the strawberry patch I caught a movement on the ground near my feet. By all measures it should not have caught my eye and in the fading light I would have placed low odds on actually finding the object in the dark leaves.

But here is what I found:

Don’t see it? How about here:

Still no? One more try:

The motion was from this tiny 1 3/4″ long “Cope’s Gray” tree frog heading southwest to the pool party that was about to commence.

Was he one of these babies that hatched from the pond last year?

Baby Tree Frog Picture Day 2012

I’ll never know but one thing is for certain: there will be more babies this year.

By the sounds of things, a lot more.