Bullfrog? Bull Elephant is More Like it.
Posted on | March 26, 2009 | No Comments
So early last spring I noticed this little hopper sunning himself on the lilypads in the center of the water garden.
Little frog on the lilypads in spring 2008
“Cool” I thought and snapped a photo of him so I could look up what kind of frog he was. It turned out that he was a bullfrog that probably wound up in my pond courtesy of the bullfrog population of the pond at the adjacent Audubon preserve. (Still not quite sure how mom and dad made the 300 yard or so trip uphill through the chaparral.) Not a native species, but I figured “what the heck”, it’s always nice to have a little extra natural pest control lurking about.
I’d see him now and again throughout the year, but for the most part, I forgot about him.
Until yesterday evening that is.
You see, I was out in the yard brining stuff in and generally cleaning up for the night when I heard that throaty “ruuuuuumppp, ruuuuuumppp, ruuuuuumppp” that gives bullfrogs their name. But instead of being off in the distance, this sound was practically under my feet. I couldn’t see anything in the fading light, so I went inside.
This morning I went out and finally got around to cleaning the pond of the overgrown plants per item 6 of my earlier post. And as I was on my my knees reaching into the iris to pull out the dead stems I came face-to-face with this:
That's a big frog
The photo doesn’t really give you an idea of the scale, but this guy has grown into a frog the size cantaloupe… a big, heavy cantaloupe. Or a small dog.
Frankly, he scared the bejeezus out of me.
Apparently I didn’t exactly make him comfortable either since a second later he took a big leap and did a cannonball into the middle of the pond.
Anyway, it’s nice to know that he’s doing well, but I’m a little taken aback at how big this guy got in just a year. I don’t what he’s been eating, but if one of my wife’s dachshunds goes missing any time in the near future, before I blame it on the local coyotes, I’m going to go looking for this frog first.
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