[...with ravine - see Canto LVI]
For about 4 weeks we have had a frog in our back yard.
When I first heard it, I convinced myself that it must be a drip from a blocked/rusted gutter, now (after many requests over about a year) replaced by the landlord. Then one evening D came up to me, smiling, and asked, “Did you know there is a frog in the back yard?”
We were both delighted. Here in deepest inner-suburbia such touchs of ferae naturae are rare. D reckoned it was somewhere in the thicketed base of the laurel tree next to the fish pond. We never saw it. We listened enchanted to its call – more an intermittent burp than a croak.
Sadly and predictably, its song betrayed it. A neighbouring cat, a persistent hunter, was shooed away from the thicket but must inevitably have returned. For 2 nights now no frog has been heard. We’d like to think it has moved on, but we know better.
I admit, it’s pretty rich of me to regret this. I am happy when the cats catch rats, and our own species is predator and destroyer numero uno. Still, we felt a loss.
June 17, 2008 at 2:53 pm |
My daughter found a frog in a bucket out the back of our house. At first we didn’t believe her – but yes, there it was, a little browny-gold frog. We were delighted. We live right next to a little stream, so we get lots. I love them, so I can understand your disappointment.
February 21, 2009 at 5:00 pm |
[...] bird (successfully) and we have also lost fish to him. We suspect him of catching the frog which disappeared from our garden last year. It is because of him that our temporary fish pond in a shopping-trolley is encased in [...]