It appears to be leap year in frog-infested yard

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/07/2021 (1547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There has been a lot of high jumping going on at my house over the past week.

No, I’m not referring to the stunning displays of athleticism playing out on the big-screen TV in my den, where I have been spending all of my free time watching athletes in Spider-Man-style Spandex suits strutting their stuff at the Tokyo Summer Olympics.

And, no, I am not referring to high-jumping grasshoppers, although we are currently hip deep in those plant-eating pests.

What I am referring to is the fact that our backyard has been invaded by an army of frogs of biblical proportions.

What with not being a scientist or a wildlife expert, I have absolutely no idea what these frogs are doing in my backyard, other than getting underfoot whenever we go outside to float in our oversized inflatable kiddie pool or fire up the barbecue.

Whenever my wife and I venture outside, we have to tiptoe through as though we were sneaking through a minefield because we have no desire to accidentally step on a small amphibian and see frog gloop squishing up between our toes.

It can be extremely stressful to have a family of small frogs decide to move into your yard. For one thing, they can be extremely hard to spot with the naked eye.

They are virtually invisible when they are parked on the green parts of our lawn, but you can’t miss them when they hop over to the yellowish bits, which, thanks to the scorching heat and lack of rain, account for the vast majority of my property.

The thing about frogs — and again I am no expert — is that they tend to take a flying leap just before you accidentally step on one. Which, in terms of frog safety, is a good thing, but it also causes me to become extremely surprised.

The truth is I am one of those people who are easily startled, so I will be happily trundling along when, suddenly and without warning, a frog will leap out of the grass in front of me, causing me to shriek like a wounded woodland creature and then spill the cup of hot coffee I am carrying all over the front of my golf shirt.

I will also confess I have absolutely no idea what species of frog has invaded our yard. In an effort to find out, I sneaked up on a couple and took their photographs with my cellphone, then compared the pictures to frog photos I found on the Internet.

To my untrained eye, they resemble Northern Leopard Frogs, because they are covered in spots and you can find them all over North America, except for the Pacific Coast.

Here’s what the website of the Canadian Wildlife Federation has to say about leopard frogs: “Most people will be familiar with this frog as it is the most common frog used in high school dissection classes. Another interesting fact is that the northern leopard frog, particularly the legs, are a culinary delicacy.”

Yikes! I now wish I had not looked up this information, because along with being easily startled, I am also extremely squeamish. Back in high school, I skipped class on the day my biology class was scheduled to dissect a frog. And I refuse to eat frog legs, because I keep imagining their sad little froggy faces staring up at me.

I suspect these frogs are finding their way to my house because we live directly across from Assiniboine Park, which means they have to hop across extremely busy Corydon Avenue without being flattened, which can’t be easy when you are about the size of a walnut.

My wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, is convinced the froggy forces are attracted to our yard because of our pool. “They must be able to smell the water,” is what she told me.

Last year, we had precisely one frog in our back yard, and I know that because we discovered him scooting around the bottom of the pool. My wife, armed with a long-handled pool skimmer, spent about two hours catching that little guy and setting him free in the garden.

For the record, my wife is extremely pro-frog. “They are absolutely adorable!” is what she cried the other day as she chased after a trio of these spotted creatures in an effort to take a family photo.

Personally, I am indifferent to frogs, and I refuse to physically touch them because I am a major weenie. This has proven to be something of a problem in the past because for more years than I can recall I competed in the Canadian Frog Jumping Championships, part of the annual Frog Follies Festival in St-Pierre-Jolys, a village about 30 kilometres south of Winnipeg that is home to roughly 900 people and an unknown number of amphibians.

At those events, my hands-off style meant they had to get a couple of local kids to haul my assigned frog out of a bucket, then plop it down in the starting circle so that I could activate it by pounding the stage and shrieking at the top of my lungs: “JUMP, YOU (BAD WORD) FROG, JUMP!!!”

Speaking of high jumping, I’m going to hop into the den and watch some Olympic athletes do that on my TV screen right now. I suspect the little spotted guys in my backyard will be green with envy.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca