Pyramid Views FEBRUARY 2018

FROG FRIENDS
Frog Pad
My first green frog experience was on Daru,
1973. Charlie, the big crocodile on Green
Island in the ‘70s was on Daru at the time.
Charlie was a gentle giant in a chicken wire
fence and he enjoyed a chat and pat on the
head. His flight out of Daru chained to a long
plank of teak full of valium, plus all that local
art, is an interesting story in itself. For my six
weeks on Daru I was billeted with “Crazy”
who had been on the island too long. He
had two pet green frogs that were on the
back railing every morning waiting for “a
rub”. Wild frogs as pets.
Now I am ‘the crazy’ with frogs around the
house, two of whom like a wash of water
when on the window sills. The old guy at
the back door has been in the same water
base pot for seven years. He likes to stick
his nose out and watch the world go by
much to the delight of the g-kids. I can rub
his nose in the pot and pick him up when he
is out. He survived a recent two day effort
by a full sized iridescent blue tree snake to
get him. Had to use some homemade ‘shoo
snake’ to make it move. Less fortunate were
some of the frogs in the trees behind the
house that we lost to a speckled monitor.
The g-kids heard those plaintive frog cries
so we decided to make some frog pads to
protect them in the future. Frog pads are
storm water pipe lengths providing hiding
spaces with frog friendly opening.
The 2017 mosquito illness report for Cairns
Dengue Fever, Barmah Forest (a Forest is in
Victoria) virus and malaria are all declining.
Green frogs do their mosquito thing. But
micro bats (the 5cm ones) do better, a
thousand insects a night (but they do suffer
from associated bad bat media coverage)
and birds like the Spotted Pardalote
contribute.
The Gordonvale Community Garden is
working on housing for each of these
options. See them at the markets.
Words and photo by Peter Noonan
Page 4 - PYRAMID VIEWS, FEBRUARY 2018 “Celebrating and connecting our community”