frog – Boolie

Brown Beauty in the Green

One of the areas I knew I would miss most when leaving Oregon was the Columbia River Gorge, a lush area of forest and waterfalls just half an hour’s drive from our urban Portland neighborhood. I usually went to Ridgefield when I wanted wildlife and the Gorge when I wanted trees and streams, but sometimes the Gorge had its own animals to share. This little beauty hidden below the dense undergrowth along the Horsetail Falls Trail is (I think) a red-legged frog, taken in the fall of 2011. Easily one of my favorite trails anywhere, I didn’t get to go late in our time in Oregon as it closed after devastating fires, but if I ever make it back it will be high on my list of places to visit.

An ant is starting to walk onto the frog in the picture below.

Vertical Climber

A Pacific treefrog sits vertically in a moss-covered tree, all soaked with rain on an October morning, beside the trail to the observation blind at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. I was crestfallen when I realized I had forgotten my tripod and wouldn’t be able to photograph the frog (and another nearby on the same tree), but then I remembered I had my adapter to put Canon lenses on my Sony camera and thus was able to use both my Canon macro lens and the image stabilization of the Sony. It saved the day and thankfully so, it turned out to be the last time I saw them before leaving the Northwest.

Urban Wildlife

One downside to living in an urban neighborhood is that I don’t see much wildlife near the house. But perhaps I just haven’t been looking closely enough, as while walking Ellie I noticed a frog, a bird, and some rabbits, all within a block of each other.

They were clearly accustomed to not only humans but also dogs, as they didn’t seem to be bothered by either my presence or the faithful pup waiting beside me.