He showed up about two weeks ago, a baby frog sitting in the catbird’s seat in our small lily pond. Don’t know how he scaled the three foot sides with a rim, and I don’t know how he even knew there was a pond up there somewhere, but he came and I am delighted. I love frogs.
I call our new guest, Uh-Huh”, the same name I have used to describe the 4 or 5 frogs we have had in the past. “Uh-Huh”is derived from the song, “Froggy Went A Courting and He Did Ride, Uh-Huh. Uh-huh!”
My grandmother used to sing me that song and I also sang it to my kids. I especially like the line:
“He took Miss Mousy on his knee, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh.
He took Miss Mousy on his knee, and said Miss Mousy will you marry me, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh.”
All our other Uh-Huhs have explanations as to their pond presences. Several came from the tadpoles I introduced and a couple more were captured and transplanted, but Uh-Huh? I have no clue.
When I pull up on the carport, Uh-Huh awaits my arrival. Sitting on a lily pad, or sometime perched on the rim of the 50-gallon polyethylene tub, if I get too close, he ducks under water for cover, but mostly he sits and waits for a bug to make a wrong move.
A previous Uh-Huh, though a bit larger than my current thumb-sized amphibian, once nailed a wasp. Quicker almost than the eye can see, his tongue extended rapidly and snared the wasp in mid-air. It was amazing to see.
Tadpoles only eat algae, but frogs, no matter the size, have a different diet, eating almost any kind of living critter they can get in their mouths, and frogs have large mouths for their sizes. Adult leopard frogs, they say, can eat small birds when they come for water.
Frogs have teeth, but don’t chew their food. Rather, frogs grip their catch in their mouths and if it tastes good, they eat it. If not, they spit it out – sorta’ like human babies, I suppose.
I’m not sure if Uh-Huh is a baby bullfrog or a baby leopard frog. If he hangs around long enough and grows a bit, I will be better able to identify the little fellow. In the meantime, he’s welcome to guard the lily pond, and mosquitoes, beware!
