On our visits to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens I always spend some time at the Amphibian Pond shooting frogs and Water Lilies. After-all, that is what it is there for.

You can always hear the pond before you see it. As you come up the rise from the Rose Gardens or across the clearing from the Event Lawn you are greeted by the improbably loud calls of the bull frog. “RiBBit”, though the conventional representation of the sound, does not really do it…at least for the bull frog. There is a deeper, darker undertone that gives the sound its character…a characteristic fall and rise…with just an hint of the echo of deep wells and damp caves at the bottom.

r
      i           it!
           BB

You can not even say it properly without a frog in your throat.

There are generally a few frogs basking in the shallow water were the stone path crosses a corner of the pond, or hauled out on the rocks sunning themselves, if it is early morning yet. This specimen is, apparently, considering the wisdom of climbing out…especially with me standing there. I am not really that close. I was using the 1.5x digital tel-converter function and full zoom so this is at 1240mm equivalent from about 6 feet. He had his space.

The other thing about frogs is that, even at the best of times, if you look them in the eye as we are here, they seem to be thinking the dark thoughts their voices express. It is all projection of course. We project human feelings based on a similarity of the frog’s countenance to the human expression associated with the emotions. Still I can hear some mother saying, “Oh stop making that frog face and cheer up! Things are not all that bad!”

And for a frog in the Amphibian Pond on the grounds of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, a pond teaming with just what a frog eats…barring an encounter with a member of the heron race (who I have never seen in the gardens)…life is indeed pretty good. It just comes down to who has the loudest and most convincing riBBit (at least for the males).

And where do we go from here for the Sunday thought now? This is the kind of whimsical rabbit trail that must lead to some significant insight…the, shall we say…frog leap to enlightenment at the end. ??

Or is it that sometimes a frog is just a frog?

What I really like about this photo is that it makes me smile. There it is. I can’t look at it without smiling, at least just a little bit. It tickles me somewhere I need tickling. And really, I have come to expect that of nature, whether in the face of a frog, the majesty of a mountain, the intensity of a storm, the beauty of butterfly wings, the awesome ingenuity of the structure of a dragonfly, the promise of sunrise, or the benediction of sunset…I always feel lifted up toward joy…in touch with significance…just a bit more alive…and happy about it. And thankful. Always thankful to the spirit that is all in all for every expression of grace.

And that is what I am always trying to photograph. RiBBit!