This fabulous frog (for I think it is a frog and not a toad) hopped up on to our backdoor step in a teeming shower of rain at 1pm. I told my husband that the amphibian was rather like a gherkin with a yellow stripe down its back. Imagine our excitement for a split second when Google seemed to come up with the ID of Natterjack Toad!If anybody can help us to name this frog (i.e. to tell us what sort of frog is gracing our garden), we would be thrilled. He was about the size of an adult hand, if you think of the body as the palm and the legs as - pretty long - fingers! We do not have a pond, and our garden is high up and about 3 km from the coast. The photographs should enlarge if you click on them.
- Read about amphibians at the Froglife website.
- Read about 'Geordie' frogs in the Daily Telegraph. My thanks to Professor P. Brain for pointing me in the direction of this article.
2 comments:
We say "Jeremy Fisher"! Looks like a healthy common frog, long stripy legs and you can just about make out the black 'mask' area behind the eyes.
The marking down the back is indeed not typical, but then the Common Frog has so many colour variations and markings that its hard to pin them down to just three bullet points of identification tips!
All power to him (or her)! And to you!
Jules, Froglife - www.froglife.org
Take 2: MANY thanks to Jules and Lucy of FrogLife for their efficient response. I am very grateful.
Long live Jeremy Fisher!
I now know that the central yellow stripe could be misleading and is a bit unusual, but that the stripes on the legs are a good indicator.
Frogs, Lucy tells me, need a pond at spawning time - but do not always live in gardens with ponds. They can, in fact, be found up to 1km away from a pond.
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