A Frog in the Hand…

…is worth a lot of smiles on a spring afternoon.

This fine fellow is a green frog that my son caught in (and returned to) a local pond. At least I think it’s a green frog and not a bullfrog after studying the National Audubon Society Field Guide to New England. This frog and its kin do let out a big eek before jumping into the water, just like the book says.

As a child, I captured thousands of tadpoles, and put them into a Coleman ice chest, much to my dad’s displeasure. It was a perfect aquarium for fledgling amphibians. I seem to have passed along the trait for frog interest to the kiddo. Two green frogs resembling the one in the photograph spent the weekend with us recently, but did go home to the pond eventually. (It is not the first time I have driven around animals “borrowed” from other places; I once drove a crab back to the beach after it climbed out of its container and scuttled into the TV room late one evening.)

The children’s book Nic Bishop’s Frogs is very good on the subject.

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