The last of my regular frogs to reappear after the winter was this beautiful southern cricket frog (Acris gryllus). They tend to be nocturnal so it may have been out of hibernation for longer than I knew, but I was happy to find it hopping around on my front porch one night a couple of weeks ago. This will be the fourth year (that I know of) that this frog has lived here and during the summer when I sit outside a lot, I see it quite often. As you can tell by the closeness of this photo, it has no real fear of me, and has gotten used to my taking it’s photo. I’m pretty sure I could pick it up if I wanted to, but I try not to disturb the wildlife any more than absolutely necessary. It’s not good for them to get too comfortable with people, but I suspect that this is kind of the nature of these frogs since this one has no real fear of the dogs, either. That used to worry me, but the dogs seem to have no interest in the frog, and they’re usually up at night when the frog is out anyhow. It’s definitely good to be seeing the reptiles and the amphibians starting to be active again. It was only a couple of months, but I missed them!