But never fear!  The Frog Doctor has a solution for all you bleary eyed frog lovers.  He has a method of locating the burrows, digging the little sleep botherers out, and re-homing them somewhere less likely to unhinge you and yours.   And the good thing is the whole family can get involved!  Here’s what he has to say:

First you’ll need a helper and a torch each.  Now go out to the area where you hear the frog, standing at 90 degrees to each other.  Point the torch light in the direction of the call.  Where the torch beams meet should be the entrance to the hole.

To dig them out you will need a small trowel.  Refrain from using a large spade as the hole has lots of twists and turns where the frogs burrow around tree roots, rocks etc. Place two fingers in the entrance of the hole and carefully start excavating the soil.  Always keep your fingers in the hole otherwise you’ll lose the burrow.

When you get about 30cm down be alert as you may feel the frog’s soft head. When you
feel the frog dig down under the frog so you cup him in your trowel.  Don’t grab him from 
above.  Place the frog in a bucket of sand, not water (remember they will drown in water).
Now you can return your frog prince to a wetland close by, a seasonal wetland preferrably
at dusk.

If you prefer the idea of these guys inhabiting your own garden you can build a frog
friendly garden, it’s all about installing a pond but incorporating it with a boggy area that
floods in winter.  

I hope this method helps some of you reclaim the night.  Let me know if you have any success.

Sue's Pond

Peek-a-boo

Hiding in the Bushes

Sunning Themselves

Now where did I put that key?

I received an email from Sally, via the Frog Doctor, because she had so many tadpoles and she wanted to share her bounty with others.  It just so happened that I had received two emails the previous day from people who wanted tadpoles for their backyard ponds.  I call it serendipity.

I wanted to check out Sally’s pond and bag myself some taddies so Sally invited me over for a look see.  What I found was a wonderland!  A lush, green paradise home to many, many fat froggies and their offspring. 

Sally dipped a jug into her pond and came up with a swirling mass of wriggling black bodies, again and again.  She lifted a shade cloth concealing one end of her pond and frogs jumped this way and that for cover.  We looked at another pond under her balcony and observed the circular dance of thousands around the pond edge.

As we lingered visitors came and went through Sally’s home, jovial and friendly.  What a comforting magnet her place must be, not only for friends and family but for wildlife as well.

Thank you Sally, for your generosity and your beauty.

Bonking Frog Winery, Dardanup, WA

Julie swears he is plotting his revenge after being summarily dismissed from her pantry for jumping out at her from the plastic bags and taking ten years off her life!

Embrace the Pantry Frog, Julie! And thanks for the wine and frog figurine.

One of these extremely worthy people was Jan who said she has had many people over the years come to her home to collect tadpoles from her pond, and she has found the register to be satisfactory.

Jan directed me to a slide show of photos of her pond and it’s dwellers. There are some very good photos of frogs on it, so go and check it out at Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/7570207@N02/sets/72157612728554849/

I love getting photos of frogs to display on my site, so if you have any you would like to share, you can contact me through the form below.

Recently, Julie Hutton from Bonking Frog Wines contacted me to ask if I had any idea why frogs at her winery seemed to like sitting on top of her verandah posts under a hot tin roof in the middle of the day. Why wouldn’t they seek a cooler place to rest?

I did some research and found that this occurence has been documented before by Mickael J. Tyler in his book Australian Frogs : A Natural History. He noted that far from roasting in the scorching conditions, the frog’s internal temperatures were 10 degrees below the ambient temperature! Julie and I therefore agreed that if several frogs were vying for this position, then that must be the place to be!

Julie also had this to say about frogs and her fabulous property:

I love frogs, which influenced our label – I knew the name was a bit out there, and I hesitated to use it for awhile, but the frogs kept popping up everywhere, in my boots, in the bathroom, congregating behind the cushions on the verandah – in the end I thought they’re trying to tell me to go for it! And as we are trying to create a sustainable vineyard, having a healthy frog population is a great indicator of how we are going. Plus the name makes me smile and most people like it – although some get a bit grumpy. We’ve copped a serve in our local paper recently, because someone thought the name was obscene – thankfully he’s the exception.

I’m also trying to follow the ‘Bonking Frog’s example – when he starts up his call can be heard over all the other frogs – and as a small wine label in a very over crowded market, we need to stand out from the crowd, just like him.

I’ve started packaging frogs with our wines in gift packs at Christmas time
- mainly for friends, but they proved so popular I’ve added a couple to our website and hopefully other people will like them – I’m having the best time going to distributors looking for frogs, I’ve got them in all shapes and sizes.

We are very small and the cellar door is also our home, visitors are welcome 7 days a week and we have tastings on our verandah. Because we are so small we always say if someone would like to make sure we are home, just give me a ring on 0408 930 332 beforehand and I can make sure I’m around.

I’ve started a ‘frog watch’ photo diary of our frogs, which I’m showing to visitors, because so many are like us ‘frog lovers’. Although I had a visitor recently who was terrified of them, she had heart palpitations when the pot plants rustled – I didn’t dare tell her there was three sitting above her head in the rafters She was a lovely lady, poor thing just found frogs really scary.

I wonder if this lady’s name was Helen?

Thanks Julie, and thank you to all my visitors who take time to contact me with frog stories or questions or who post comments to my stories.

The photos in this story were supplied by Julie Hutton of Bonking Frog Wines. 

Thanks Marcus, this is a beauty.