American Bullfrog Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Oddly Orange Waxing Gibbous Moon (extended exposure) – Photo: L. Weikel

Just Some Critter

I’m sitting here on my couch, laptop at the ready. Our thick wooden front door is open, leaving only a screen between the elements and me. Curiously, at least at this very moment, the only sound I hear is the intermittent buzz of a single insect. It’s not even a cricket. Just some critter hanging around the hostas or maybe sitting on a leaf or nestled in a crevice of our shagbark hickory.

Perhaps I’m noticing that the only sound is this single random buzzer because I was just outside trying to capture the eerie creamsicle-colored beauty of the waxing gibbous moon. I definitely wasn’t planning on writing about the moon tonight. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to share photos of a hawk that screeched at us relentlessly for a good ten minutes on our walk last night.

But as I was getting the photos in order, my eye caught sight of something bright and colorful peering in at me through the living room window. At first I assumed it was a lightning bug. It’s kind of weird how often I see a lightning bug at the very same spot, blinking at me as it clings to the screen. It can’t be the same bug, either – I see one in the same spot year after year. I can’t explain it.

But it wasn’t a lightning bug. It was the moon – and a noticeably orange one at that.

Can’t Capture It

I’m sorry to say that no matter how hard I tried, I failed to capture both the rich pumpkin hue and the surprisingly large appearance of her this evening. It was the color that was most surprising, though. It’s startling to see so much orange when she’s so high in the sky.

While I was standing outside on the lawn in the dark, fiddling with my iPhone, I was at first serenaded by an army of bullfrogs. (Yes, that’s the technical name for a bunch of frogs.) Their voices were impressive – and in the blackness of the night, it was easy to imagine them each weighing a good 35 pounds or so.

But then, right while I was attempting to photograph the moon, my most treasured neighbors called out to me. All of a sudden the three donkeys that now graze on the hill behind our barn let loose with their otherworldly sand people (a la Star Wars) sounding voices. (Click the links – the donkeys really do sound like that.) I struggle to express how much joy their noisy, bizarre, cacophonic iterations bring me.

And of course by the time I switched to a mode in which I could record them all three of them abruptly went mute. I swear they were messing with me.

Weird – at this very moment, even the scritchy noise of the bug that’s not a cricket has stopped. Only silence so profound that I can hear faint ringing in my ears prevails.

Waxing Gibbous Moon (regular exposure) – Photo: L. Weikel

The Tiniest Green Frog

On our walk today, Spartacus and I met the next star of her own storybook. Meet the tiniest green frog in Tinicum Township.

It was a fluke that I even noticed her. Hanging out at the edge of the road, I’m not sure what she was contemplating. Why didn’t she just go the extra jump and put herself back into the swampy roadside gloop created by last night’s rainstorm? Were there bullies among the slimy bubbles?

What possessed her to risk it all when we approached, holding still while the Two-legged Giant and Four-legged Sniffer got closer and closer? It’s clear she had the advantage of surprise, yet she didn’t use it. Instead the tiny tadger permitted photographs and comparisons, musings and speculations.

Perhaps she was trying to break out of the mold of her foremothers and forefathers. Strike out on a different career path than the ancestors before her. Prove to herself that she wouldn’t be pigeon-holed by The Man’s ideas of what Green Frogs are capable of achieving.

Smaller Than a Thumbdrive – Photo: L. Weikel

We’ll Never Know

She held her tongue. Little Miss Green Frog was as tight-lipped as she was tiny. Indeed, she was trying to pass as a Bullfrog, which made me laugh, but not impolitely. (Spartacus snickered but stopped when I gave him the Look.)

The thing is, see, she didn’t realize that I cannot be fooled. I have access to Pennsylvania’s finest herpetological sleuthing tool, PA Herp Identification. And I’m dedicated. I compared Bullfrogs to Green Frogs and her glandular folds were the tell that told the tale. At least they told part of the story.

Where she was going and why – being far and away the tiniest Green Frog in Tinicum Township – is a mystery that will have to be solved another day.

In the meantime, take a look at just how teeny tiny – yet perfectly formed, and without even the hint of a juvenile tail to boot – this princess was.