An Amphibian Visitor

On Saturday morning, when Dale headed off with his Boy Scout troop to put flags on the graves of the veterans at our local cemetery, I headed for the deck with my knitting and a cup of coffee. As I sat knitting, sipping and listening to Water for Elephants, I noticed a strange lump on one of the rungs of a high stool we keep on our deck. It was hard to make out as I wasn’t wearing my glasses, but there was definitely something there. So I got up and walked closer and this is what I saw:

A frog. Or toad. I wasn’t sure at first so I did some googling and identified him as a gray tree frog. He’s kind of cute, for a frog, I think.

He spent the entire day on the rung of that stool. He moved when I watered the plant that was sitting on top but he didn’t get down. That’s not surprising, given that these frogs are nocturnal. Around 7pm, just as dusk was starting to descend and I was cooking steaks on the grill, he started vocalizing. It startled me at first and I leaned right down and looked at him and said, “was that you??” He can make a lot of noise for a little fella.

Soon enough he started maneuvering on the stool. First he jumped down to a different rung and then he jumped to one of the vertical posts of our deck railing. He made his way down to the deck itself and then he was gone into the night.

I figured we’d seen the last of him but he was back on the deck all day Monday. Apparently he likes us.

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This Post Has 24 Comments

  1. Sounds like you have a new pet! We have a quite a few of these in our woods or maybe a relative. Boy , do they make noise!

  2. So cute, and the bonus is you don’t have to feed your new pet/visitor or clean up after it.

  4. Hehe. He’s a cute thing and looks very much at home chez Carole and Dale. Hope he sticks around.

  9. Adorable! Can’t wait to show Katie the picture when she gets home from school šŸ™‚ She did a report on tree frogs & now can’t get enough of them, LOL. When are you going to introduce him to Dixie & Mason? Hehe!

  11. Noisy little buggers! We had them at the camp growing up… we used to have to look twice before you sat on a rock.

  12. “Have you named him yet?” hah, hah! What a story! Just clicked back to your Renaissance Fair post; how I’d love to knit my husband a Dumbledore flat cap with tassel — but he’d never wear it.

  13. He’s going to need a name. It kinda looks like he thinks he is camouflaged sitting on that rung!

  18. What a cutie! And I don’t know if it’s just the angle, but it looks like he has a perfect star on his back. šŸ™‚

  19. He is so cute! Last summer we raised 6 tadpoles and watched them turn into toads and eventually released them at our lake house. Have fun watching him.

  22. I love him! I’ve never seen one before. I’m guessing we don’t have them in this part of the country. Very cool! Has he continued to come back?

  23. He is probably very tiny if he is sitting on a rung. I have never seen a frog around our area. I have a alligator lizard in living somewhere between my geranium pots at the front door. Spotted her a few times in the sun. She (we called her Jasmine) eats all the snails. It’s so great to have these critters around. I do squeal when I see one.

  24. Guess what! This morning I was lifting my hanging basket of annuals to hang it (it had been on our front step, protected from thunderstorms last night) and low and behold I saw something gray/brown sitting among the flowers: a gray tree frog. I would not have know what it was if it wasn’t for your blog post. So thanks!

    I did pick him up and put him somewhere else since tonight he would have probably wanted to hop out and I didn’t want him to get hurt hopping out of a hanging basket that was a lot higher than when he hopped in.

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