Given my druthers I tend to be a night owl. I’ve never been able to go to bed early, and I absolutely hate getting up early (even though my job requires it. Ugh!). So it is not all that unusual for me to go outside after dark for any number of reasons. The other night I ran out to my truck to get something about 1 am, and I was totally surprised to see a little tree frog sitting on my deck box. We have had a fairly cold (by Florida standards) winter so far, so I hadn’t expected to see any frogs for the next couple of months. Most of them are hibernating, or at least too chilly to go out from cover. It was a fairly warm evening, and I guess this little guy had decided to venture out.

A second reason I was kind of surprised to see this little frog, was that it was a pine woods tree frog, and they tend to prefer to stay up in the tops of the trees, and don’t come down to the level of my porch all that often. I have seen them on the porch and on the upstairs deck occasionally before in the summer, but mostly I know they are around because I hear them calling during the summer. They are sometimes called “Morse Code Frogs” because of their clicking type call. Many people mistake their calls for insects like cicadas or crickets. Like our green tree frogs, they mainly eat insects, especially those pesky ones, so they are good to keep around if you have them in your area.

This little frog actually seemed as curious about me as I was about it, so it was very cooperative for some photos. Honestly, it was so cooperative that at first I thought it might have been a bit too cool and not able to move quickly. Remember, frogs are cold blooded, so their body temperatures and metabolisms are controlled at least partially by environmental temperature. But as I started trying to get some closer shots, I guess safety concerns overwhelmed curiosity and it jumped into a nearby boxwood that is next to the deck box. I could still see it in the boxwood, despite its camouflaged coloring (which helps it blend in with the bark of the trees it lives in), but it is never my intent to frighten or harass my subjects, so I decided to stop the photo session. When I went outside again about an hour later I looked for it, just out of curiosity, but it had moved on. I have no idea why it was out and about this time of the year, but it was a welcome surprise!