Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Bumpy frog and Mr Grumpy

Now you see him, now you don't!

This Bumpy Rocketfrog (Litoria inermis) might not be a him. Whatever the gender, the frog looks more Mr Grumpy than Bumpy. Not so hard to explain. It's nice and dark and you're in the middle of a mass of rocketfrogs, all dreaming rocketfrog dreams, the next second someone's poking a finger into a cleft in a dead stump and you're rudely prodded awake.Blame a more active frog whose movement caught the prodder's eye.

What can an indignant frog do under such circumstances? Best to play it cool. No noises, not even a 'cluc' or 'wek' - they're for mating. Disdain. Unblinking disdain. Regal disdain.

That's it, the disdain of a monarch. Take up a commanding position and stare the danger down. Then hop off somewhere safer. Such as merging against a dead trunk. Wait for the intruder to go away and play his anthropomorphic games with someone else.

All interesting enough as part of today's life in Tyto, but a curious thing comes with the frog on the stump. As is only too clear, I missed part of frog, and focus is soft. Nothing odd there.
But when I crop any part of the full frame the picture suffers. The more I crop, the more it suffers. Others may find nothing in the picture and feel little regret that (I think) something better was butchered.

3 comments:

Mosura said...

That's one mean looking frog! :-)

Nice find.

ADVENTURES IN NATURE said...

A 'Bumpy Rocket Frog'! haha that's cute. No such thing here, but it sure is cute. I love the fungus pics too, I'll have to post some from the northern hemisphere.

Gouldiae said...

G'day Tony,
Lovely story. Yeah, he does look as though he's saying, "Keep your finger to yourself!"
Regards,
Gouldiae

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