Meet Heget. Heget is a Tree Frog. Heget showed up one day in a way that I couldn’t have anticipated. I went to water the plants on my balcony, one morning, and was surprised to find this very special visitor.
Over the next several weeks, she would appear almost every morning, in the same spot, and head out on another adventure each evening. A couple of times, I was there when arrived “home” in the morning.
One day, I needed to water the plants. I checked the watering pot, to make sure Heget wasn’t in there. I didn’t see her in the spout. I didn’t see her in the main part of the pot. So, I brought the watering pot into the kitchen to fill. When the pot was almost filled, guess who hopped out of the spout and onto the wall of the kitchen!!! You guessed it. Heget. It was a little tricky, but I managed to get her outside with no harm done.
She is a little shy about being out in the open though. So, she hopped into the plants to hide for awhile.
A couple of times, I was sitting out on the balcony when it was time for her to head off for her night time eating and croaking session. I found it amazing how quickly she could hop from one thing to another. She was so fast that I couldn’t even see her hop. She just seemed to appear in a different place with no effort at all.
Well, one day Heget didn’t appear on my balcony any more. I was a little sad. But, I knew that she had to be on her way.
About 2 weeks later, I noticed what looked like little eggs in the fountain pond that is right next to where Heget used to hang out. At least, they looked like eggs.
One Sunday morning, a short time after that, I saw little ripples in my fountain pond, sort of like when a bug hits the water. But, these ripples were coming from something in the pond. What could that be? Oh my goodness, there are tadpoles (baby frogs) in the pond!!!
It’s been several weeks since I first noticed the tadpoles. At first, they were so tiny that I had to really look for them. Gradually they got bigger. But then, it seemed like they weren’t getting any bigger and I wondered if they were finding enough things to eat.
Tadpoles, I found out, eat different things, as they get older. And, I found out that two of the things that they might like to eat, at this stage, are broccoli and baby spinach. Who would have thought that? So, I started putting little bits of broccoli and a couple of spinach leaves into the water.
Sure enough, I could see the leaves moving across the water, as the tadpoles were biting them on the edges. And, the broccoli would go around in circles, as they crunched into it!
It’s now been two weeks since I first started feeding the tadpoles, and like any aquarium, there were bits of uneaten food in the water. So, I grabbed a little scoop with a screen on it and began collecting the little bits on top of the water. But, there were some down in the bottom of the pond and I had to reach down into the water to pull them out. All of a sudden, I saw something jump!
It is a frog!!! A tiny baby frog! Heget’s tadpoles are becoming frogs!!!
Look at my FaceBook page, Tree Perspective, for a post of this story and a couple of videos that I was unable to attach to this writing.
Peter