Deck frog, spigot frog, a tale of two amphibians

Every year around this time we have frogs that hang out on our house. Really that's on our house, although around it is also applicable. This year we have two frogs who have been more regular and reliable than any frog of the past. This is their story.

We first met deck frog on a warm afternoon. We spotted him by chance hanging out on the lower railing of our deck. We took pictures, we enjoyed watching him, and when we left for another activity, though nothing of it when he was gone upon our return. Frogs come, frogs go. A day later, though, he was on the deck again, this time on top of the railing. Over the course of a week or two we realized that he was always around our deck somewhere: if you just took the time to search him out he was there somewhere.

We named him Deck Frog.

Then came the morning that I was outside watering. Since potted plants love sun-warmed water, I started with the potted herbs on the deck, watering them from the can I leave full nearby, before refilling the can at the rain barrel and moving on to the raised garden boxes and their vegetables. Imagine my surprise when, upon finishing my job, I put the can down to see deck frog climbing out, perhaps feeling a little harried. I apologized profusely and returned the can, and the frog, to the deck.

When a similar thing happened again a few days later, I went out and bought myself a new watering can so Deck Frog could keep the old one.

Spigot Frog is an equally constant but less personable presence in our lives, perhaps because we spend a lot more time hanging out on our deck than we do hanging out by our spigot. I met Spigot Frog when I went to attach the hose to the outdoor spigot before setting the sprinkler on our newly transplanted grass, and there he was on the ledge of the cutout in our siding. He did not move when I attached the hose, and had moved only so far as the other side of the cutout when I came back to turn the water off. For weeks he has been there throughout most of the day, gone only at night when he is hunting.

We named him Spigot Frog.

Eventually they will leave us, as all our froggy visitors do summer after summer, so we will just enjoy them as long as we can. They are both Gray treefrogs, by the way, common visitors to Michigan homes. I wonder if Spigot Frog and Deck Frog go on dates when we are not looking.