Posts in Category: frog
Northern Grey Treefrog
Northern Grey Treefrog, Cape May Point, Cape May NJ
My friend Rich went out with the New Jersey Audubon Young Birders on Saturday morning of the Cape May Autumn Bird Festival (ZEISS, who we both work for, sponsors the Young Birders), and they found a Northern Grey Tree Frog in a tree on the back side of the trails behind the Hawk Watch platform and the Lighthouse. He pointed out the spot on Sunday morning when he and I walked the same trails. Monday I was back there for one last loop around the trails before heading for Philadelphia and my flight back to Maine, and just for fun, I checked the tree. What do you know? The frog was there, tucked deep into the V where a branch rose at a sharp angle from the main trunk. The Grey Treefrog is small by North American frog standards…this is an adult and is only a bit less than 2 inches long. I was amazed at how well camouflaged the tree frog is. It matched the grey mottled, lichen covered bark of the tree almost perfectly. If I had not known where to look, I would never have seen it. And I had to look twice at that 🙂
I suspected at least some degree of chameleon like ability (color cloaking), so I had to look up the Grey Tree Frog this morning, and indeed, the males, like this specimen, can change through a range of greys and greens to match the bark or foliage where they sit. It is not a quick change like the chameleon, but over a hour or so, the male Grey Treefrog can mimic its perch, provided it picked a perch within its color pallette, most convincingly. What do you know?
Nikon P610 macro at 105mm equivalent field of view. Since it was overcast with limited daylight, I used the flash for an exposure of 1/60th @ ISO 160 @ f5.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Jeweled Frog
Northern Leopard Frog, Tawas Point State Park, MI
There is nothing unusual about a Northern Leopard Frog. They are common in fresh water ponds of Maine, especially at higher elevations…and evidently they are common in the lakes of Michigan as well…at least Lake Huron, at Tawas Point State Park. On the other hand, I have never seen one jeweled with sand as they all seem to be along the Huron shore. The ones I found were resting in the sand several feet from the water’s edge…two hops (and a Northern Leopard Frog is a champion hopper) at least. Since the shore is sandy, I suppose it is not strange to see that the frogs are coated with sand…just a bit outside my experience of frogs in general, and Northern Leopard Frogs in particular. 🙂
Sony HX90V at around 1000mm equivalent. 1/250th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom.
Frog of the morning
Chiricahua Leopard Frog, Sweetwater Wetlands, Tucson AZ
I think this is a Chiricahua Leopard Frog. We found it at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, AZ. The range is right. The habitat is right. And it matches the descriptions. So that is what I am calling it until someone who knows better corrects me. 🙂
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 200 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Northern Leopard Frogs Rule!
Northern Leopard Frog. Alwive Pond, Alwive Pond Woods, Kennebunk Land Trust
There may have been no Moose at Alwive Pond in the Alwive Pond Woods Preserve of the Kennebunk Land Trust, but there were certainly a lot of Northern Leopard Frogs. I do not know what the tipping point is, but there are ponds in Southern Maine where the Bull Frog predominates to the exclusion of Leopard Frogs, and there are ponds where the Leopard Frog appears have displaced all the Bulls. Alwive Pond is Northern Leopard Frog territory! They were everywhere along the pond edge in the boggy peat. You can actually get pretty close to a Northern Leopard Frog…much closer, in my experience, than you can get to any Bull Frog. 🙂 I love the pattern on the skin, and I find the Leopard Frog elegant, when compared to a Bull Frog. I am glad to find that they have their strongholds, places where the Northern Leopard Frog rules, and that one is in Alwive Woods.
This is a collage of 4 views, representing 3 frogs, assembled in Coolage. All images with the Sony HX90V at various equivalent fields of view, from 50mm to 200mm. Processed in Lightroom.
Poison Dart Frogs
Several varieties of the same species of Poison Dart Frog, and one of another species.
There is a spot on the bigger island, closer to the mainland, in the Bocas Del Torro archipelago, where a number of color morphs of one species of Poison Dart frog coexist. This is unusual. It is not a place you are going to find, or to want to go, unless you are with the excellent guides at Tranquilo Bay Lodge. And there is a second species there as well. (The black and yellow frog is the second species…all the others are the same species.) These are tiny frogs…not the Amazon Poison Dart Frogs you have seen on Nat Geo. They are about a half inch long at best. They hop about in the leaf litter all over the forest floor. The black and yellow frog has a large cluster of tadpoles on her back. She is ferrying them high into the canopy, where she will deposit them in a bromeliad. She will then tend and feed them until they morph into frogs, at which point they will then climb back down to the forest floor to live and breed. Very interesting!
Because of the low light under the heavy canopy, I had to use the flash for all these images, and because of size of the frogs (and how fast they are), all the images are cropped from full frame. Nikon P900. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Phototastic Pro.
Frog of the Oostvaarderplassen?
I am not sure what this huge frog is. It was several sizes larger than the Common Frog I saw out on the trails at the Oostvaarderplassen in Holland. If it had been in the US I would have called it a Bull Frog without hesitation, but in Europe I am not so certain. In fact, the American Bull Frog is a problem in many countries in Europe…one of the most invasive of introduced species, so this could, in fact, be exactly what it looks like 🙁 A Bull Frog on the wrong side of the pond. 🙂
Canon SX50HS at 2400mm equivalent field of view. Program with -1/3EV exposure compensation and iContrast. Processed in PicSay Pro on the Nexus 7 2013.
Superhero Frog!
Maybe it was the full moon rising, but the woods at Emmons Preserve in Kennebunkport were full of tiny frogs and toads on Sunday. Well, not full, but I did see two American Toads and three Wood Frogs…the smallest Toad was about 3/8 inch long, and the largest Wood Frog was still under an inch. Since both of these species grow to 2.5 inches, these certainly qualify as tiny Toads and Frogs! The fellow at the top here is the largest of the Wood Frogs. I especially like the “Masked Avenger” look…which, considering the size of the frog, is particularly funny. Kind of like a toddler dressed up as Spider Man for Halloween. Cute. With luck this specimen will grow to full size…to make the world safe from the tiny bugs that live in leaf litter 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 2400mm equivalent field of view (1200mm optical plus 2x digital tel-extender). f6.5 @ 1/160th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
Spring Peeper??
This is, as you can maybe tell from the mown grass it is in, a very small frog. At first I thought it might be a very young Pickerel Frog, but I am thinking it is actually a Spring Peeper. Anyone with more definite knowledge could easily talk me out of the identification. I would even believe a convincing argument that it is a toad. If I had put a quarter down it would have completely covered the frog, and a nickle would have covered the body. If you are viewing this on a monitor or laptop, the frog in the image is probably 3 to 4 times life size (depending on your viewing screen). It was making hard work of moving through the grass. It basically had to climb over the stalks.
Canon SX50HS. Program with my usual modifications. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom.
Hard to impress. Happy Sunday!
I did not actually see this frog through the electronic viewfinder of my Canon SX50HS. I was just framing the luminous water lilies with the long end of the zoom, for effect. When I edited the image in Lightroom, the frog was there, making his frog face, big as life.
Some critters are just had to impress. I mean, there he is, surrounded by exceptional beauty…I love the way the light is cupped in the pink lilies and the patterns the pads make in the water…and Mr. Frog still has his business-as-usual frog-face on.
Canon SX50HS with the usual modifications to Program. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 250. Processed in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday Thought: We are already half way there. Some critters, and people, are hard to impress. There were lots of people…boaters, fishermen and women, joggers, dog walkers, and picnicers…at Roger’s Pond yesterday. I wonder how many of them gave more than a glance to the water lilies? I wonder how many of them, like froggy here, were too absorbed in the day-to day to take time to admire what the sunlight was doing with the lilies?
Or am I being unfair to the frog (which clearly is a more important question to me than it is to the frog). Frogs just have that unfortunate face, from our particularly human point of view. We read misery, displeasure…boredom at the best…into those bulging eyes and that down-turned mouth, because, obviously, in humans that is what it would say. We attribute feelings to froggy which, in fact, he almost certainly does not share. For all I know, froggy was as enraptured as I was by the light in the lilies. Or not. Probably not. Enrapture might well be one of the perks of the particularly human point of view. It might in fact, be part of our common inheritance as children of the Creator God. I suspect it is.
But then, am I being unfair to all the other people at Roger’s Pond that day (which is clearly a question that is more important to me than it is to them)? If enrapturement…a deep and satisfying appreciation, an arresting appreciation, of beauty…is a human characteristic, then certainly more my fellow humans around the pond might have been experiencing it in the presence of the luminous water lilies. Yes? Despite appearance to the contrary.
I can’t read anything into the attitude of the frog. Maybe I should avoid reading too much into the attitude of the humans.
After all, I did not even see the frog in the image until I looked closer in processing. Some people are just hard to make an impression on!
Happy Sunday.
Here Froggy!
There are lots of frogs, of course, at the pond where I am doing most of my dragonfly and damselfly hunting these days. Sometimes I just have to shoot one. I am always fascinated by that brass eye, which always seems to be looking right at you, no matter where you stand.
Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1 EV exposure compensation. 1240mm equivalent field of view. f5.8 @ 1/320th @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.