I almost committed murder this morning and it was a tricky decision to choose not to.

I’d gone outside to have a walk around my back garden, check how the weeds are growing, seeing if there is anything edible ready for picking.  I always keep one eye out for the wildlife.  Just in case.

Mainly it is birds.  I’m often joined by Willy Wagtail, and Pee Wee; sometimes by Bush Stone Curlew or African Minah, occasionally by Cockatoo or Torrisian Crow.  Today a startlingly blue Monarch Butterfly joined the trail from herbs to vegetables to fruit trees to all the weeds and the knee deep green stuff that is supposed to be grass that was cut just a week ago.

It was when I got to the birdbath that things got interesting.  ‘Birdbath’ is a bit of an ambitious euphemism for a plant pot base balanced on top of two bricks.  Yesterday it had been filled with frog spawn.  It might have been toad spawn but I needed Google to check the difference.  I tipped it all out anyway and gave the birdbath a good scrub and set it up for the bird posse to have a drink.

Today it was full of spawn again and once again I tipped it out.  The bird bath was not a good place to lay eggs – way too shallow to allow a batch of baby frogs/toads to reach maturity, but this time, as I tipped out the gelatinous mess, Mama jumped out from between the bricks. 

She was UGLY.  Yes, capital letters UGLY.  So like almost every well-trained ex-pom I went to my kitchen and found a plastic bag.  The next five minutes would have been hilarious to see and I am very grateful that my back garden is private.  An almost-70 year old granny running around the garden in her nighty trying to catch a large, warty, amphibian in a small freezer bag would possibly have broken Tik Tok.

The plastic bag is because there is no way on this planet that I would consider picking up a possible cane toad in my bare hands.  I might die!!!!  I probably wouldn’t…  but it’s at times like this that you realise that you do, after all, have a strong will to live a bit longer.

The hand protected by that freezer bag did actually catch the frog.  The bag was inverted, knot tied in the top and the whole thing was put into the freezer – which I have been assured is about the most pain free option for euthanasia for an amphibian.  It’s certainly better than the other common options I’ve heard of. 

Safe, once again in my little world  in front of my laptop and suddenly had a thought.  I’m pretty sure it’s a cane toad, but how can I be sure?  I’m not exactly an expert.  Off to Google where I discovered that toad just MIGHT be frog.  In fact, it closely resembled a native frog with the unlikely name of Pobblebonk.  (Don’t ask me where that name comes from – I don’t have a clue!!)

Frog/toad came out of the freezer.  She’d only been there a few minutes but she was wasn’t moving.  Had I committed murder??    No, thank goodness she was still alive just a tad cold.  I needed to check if there were pouches on her shoulders; if her toes were webbed and if her eyes were slits.  No, no, no.  Oh no…  what colour is her belly – white.  I think this is a native frog and not am invasive cane toad.  But I don’t know. 

By now frog had woken up  so I loosened the top of the plastic bag a little to let more air in – and she jumped!!!  Luckily, I still had hold of the top of the plastic bag so I didn’t have to contend with an escapee in the kitchen!

I still don’t know if she is a cane toad or a native frog, but I wasn’t about to take a chance.  I’d rather let nature decide life expectancy and I definitely didn’t want the possibility of my having frozen a native frog.  I let her loose in the weeds.  I suspect I won’t have frog spawn in my birdbath tomorrow. 

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Auri’An Lay

Life through a neuro-divergent mind