We have quite a number of Green Tree Frogs, Litoria caerulea, in our garden but they don’t live where their name would suggest they live. The species has adapted very happily to suburban life and they sit every evening on windowsills outside lighted rooms, feasting on insects attracted to the lights; or they come indoors like this one; or they catch some warmth on the edge of the birdbath; and so on. Around this time of year they get pathetically optimistic about breeding opportunities (never mind that it hasn’t rained for months!) and call out in response to lawnmowers, dogs barking next door, motorbikes, aeroplanes and anything else that makes a baritone grawwrk!, so we know there’s one in the laundry tub drain pipe, too.
But they can still surprise us.
A couple of days ago we spotted a shiny dark – something – in the cement-brick base of a garden seat. It turned out to be the nose of a frog, and he had a neighbour in the adjoining brick. The holes were barely wide enough for me to fit my thumb through and the frogs were well grown – even their noses looked too big to fit through the holes, let alone their bodies. There were no other ways in or out so we decided they must have got in there when younger and survived ever since on passing ants.
To the rescue!



Green Tree Frogs? They certainly weren’t green, but we weren’t surprised since we know they change colour to match their surroundings. The darkest I have seen were in Reef HQ Aquarium; I showed one here with a more normal one for comparison.
They were also not keen to escape. In fact, we needed a hose and quite some time to persuade them to hop out. Then we patted ourselves on the back for our kindness towards dumb animals, put the seat back together and went on with the rest of our lives.
Next day we were out there again but when we looked at the bricks we had to laugh at ourselves and marvel at frogs’ ability to squeeze through tiny gaps: two dark shiny noses poked up out of their holes. So much for our rescue!