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The Terror of the Tree Frog
T
I
but bear with me. Because it could have a fairy tale ending.
Tree frogs may once have lived in Britain. They are Europe’s smallest amphibians and I keep some in a large
vivarium outside my house, which I have raised from
tiny froglets eating fruit ies to fully grown adults that would still nd a comfortable t in a matchbox. While one day I hope they will breed in their articial world
of pond weeds and tree stumps, they are most likely of
Turkish origin and as such much less likely to prosper in our climate than the tougher tree frogs of France. Mine are like most of those kept as pets in Britain – a bright emerald green. Elsewhere in turquoise, or a more
modest slate grey, they are found living free from the
Channel Coast southward to North Africa, from Japan
in the east to wherever their range ends in northern
Birds, Beasts and Bedlam
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Russia. During their mating season in late spring when they gather in shallow water bodies to breed, the tiny pugnacious males with their creamy brown throat sacs ascend reed stems or low scrub growth to scream through the night at their rivals. So irate do they become, like
bilious back-benchers all port ushed and pompous,
that you feel when they are fully wound up, they could quite easily explode.
Maybe sometimes they do.
Alone in the dark with a light popping sound.
While their piping crescendo is shrill and repetitive for
most folk who live where they do, it’s a normal night
sound of nature. They do not have fangs or toxic poisons. Even if you lick one you will not suer or experience the
mildest of highs. Given the foregoing, their capacity to inspire terror is a novel phenomenon, which I witnessed twice in my life.
We had driven from our farm in Devon in the summer of 2017 to Martin Noble’s reptile-ridden property near Holmsley in the New Forest. Martin, who was the former head keeper of the New Forest, is a great collector of both amphibians and reptiles. Low, well-cultivated pens
with pruned heathers and wild herbs, basking logs and
pools occupy most of his back garden. While most of his
wards live there, some like the wall lizard which climbed
his next-door neighbour’s Virginia creeper one summer
to bask in the evening sunlight where it warmed the window shelf in their daughter’s bedroom – she was convinced it was an elf – do not.