Resourcefulness contributes to survival!

" Here you are seeing the eyes of a great thinker and escape artist. That's my right thumb on the right side of the picture as I try to make this frog's powerful hind legs relax. "

Dear Fellow Earthlings, Several days ago, as I searched for invasive bullfrogs in a pond I had almost completely drained, the biggest bullfrog in that pond had to make its move and hightail it out of the pond. As soon as I noted that that creature was literally sprinting (on its two

hind legs) as it made a mad dash into the nearby woods, I utilized my own

still quite formidable sprinting skills and -- using a roundabout path --

chased after the frog so that I could dispatch it. The frog saw what I was doing — and immediately headed back to the pond (this time jumping in large 2 meter leaps), whose extremely muddy

water afforded it more cover than did the quite dried out land foliage

surrounding the pond during this very arid Oregon summer. Yes, the North American bullfrog is more than just a jumper! It is also quite an intelligent creature. The story does not end here: A few days later, with the pond’s water now even lower, the frog actually stopped on the shore and allowed me to catch it in a net. It maintained eye contact with me and seemed to realize that its days were numbered. So it “turned on the charm” and allowed me to transport it a half mile up a hill and to my waiting truck, which I had hoped to use to haul it to a researcher at nearby Oregon State University, located in Corvallis, Oregon. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch! Out on the road, the frog surprised me by breaking out of a bucket placed on the front seat of the truck and jumping out of the open passenger side window of the vehicle, disappearing into the roadside foliage under the protection of early morning darkness. If that bullfrog succeeds in reproducing, it is going to pass on some important survival traits from its magnificent genome! Steve Walker Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.