We made a friend!

Tonight I drove down to the local shopping centre to pick up The Middle Child from work, and The Baby decided to come along for the ride. On the way back, I was telling them about our froggy visitor last night, and as we turned into our estate, I thought we'd take a detour alongside the wetlands and listen out for gabonka frogs.

The boys really weren't into the idea (teenagers, ugh!), and The Baby was making pretend frog noises, trying to persuade me to give up and head home. Whatever...

When we got home, I was amazed to see a teeny-tiny froggie on the porch again. Did he make his way back, or is this another frog altogether? Whichever it is, I'm thinking it's a sign of a healthy ecosystem, and that we must have some frog-friendly plants in the front garden.

This time, I persuaded Bike Boy that he didn't need rescuing - he obviously likes some plants or insects in our garden and can find his own way back to the creek if he wants to. I also managed to grab the camera and get a pic, so here's the little feller:



He's only about 2cm long - to give you a bit of perspective, here's a shot of the decking. I would have circled him, but I don't seem to have any editing software after the last laptop rebuild... *sigh* If you look closely, you can see him - he's the light-coloured splotch near the corner of the bricks:

A froggy blog

I went shopping yesterday and now have plants galore! I was planning to spend today toiling, and post some photos of my "instant" garden tonight. Unfortunately, the weather had other ideas, with thunderstorms and nasty high winds.

So instead, I'm blogging about..... frogs.

We have a creek at the end of our street, which has been mostly dry since we've been here. Except after rain, and even then it dries up into a chain of muddy puddles pretty quickly. But there's a permanently boggy area in the cow paddock round the corner, and over in the grandly-named wetlands, we have some big ponds too. Which is apparently water enough for the local frog population.

On my walks around the estate, I love to hear the frog calls. I never have any idea what kind they are, but the croaks and clicks always make me smile. One has a really funny call, that goes kind of like this:

Ga-bonk, ga-BONK.

So I named it the Gabonka frog, much to Bike Boy's amusement. (Remember this, I'll come back to it later)

Last night, I went out to pick my husband up from the station at 11:30pm (long story) and almost stepped on what I thought was a moth on the front porch, partly under the door. I closed the door and looked closer and realised it was actually a tiny stripey frog. When we got home, I warned Bike Boy not to step on the teeny weeny frog on the porch. He immediately decided that he had to rescue the little froggie and return it to its environment, right NOW.

I was then treated to the hilarious sight of my slightly beer-affected spouse chasing a frog around the porch at midnight. He did catch it eventually, and toddled off down the street, with Froggie cupped in his hands. He let it go on the creek bank and came home happy.

Today I decided to find out what kind of frog it was. Turns out it was a Clicking Froglet:



The Frogs Australia website is awesome - it even has audio of the calls of most frogs. So that got me thinking about my Gabonka frog..... which I found via his funny call:




....and here's the bloody hilarious part: one of this frog's common names is (wait for it)..... the Pobblebonk. POBBLEBONK????

And Bike Boy thought MY name for it was funny!

If you want to hear him ga-BONKing, go here, scroll down to the bit that says Call, and click on the audio link.