Frogs and beaches

It’s almost summer and soon waves of humans will be heading to the beach for one of those lazy holidays. I understand that beaches look pretty but why do so many of you want to fry yourself for hours under the hot sun? It’s not exactly great for you, is it? When it’s hot you need to take a frog’s advice and head for some shade. 

People tell me that humans have fun on the beach doing things like playing volleyball and that I should stop being so boring and join in. Uh? How exactly do you think I’m going to be able to play volleyball without getting squashed?

The beach environment isn’t to my liking anyway. For a start, I don’t like seawater – yuck so much salt. I’ve some cousins who can tolerate saltwater a bit, but they’re from the crazy side of the family so nothing surprises me any more about them. These nutty relatives get a kick from taking excursions in seawater – so I won’t be going on holidays with them!

Shakespeare and Frogs

I've recently been dabbling in human literature and came across someone called Shakespeare. He seems to have been pretty prolific and must have made a bit of an impact because recently the anniversary of his death made headlines all around the world. What I didn't understand is why the media didn't make more of a deal about his birthday rather than the day he sadly passed away?

From the selection of articles I read (from old newspapers dumped near our pond by lazy passersby), Shakespeare really captured the essentials of the human condition (whatever that is). More, importantly, what does he say about the frog condition?


Looking through the sites I found, the main quote featuring us is from some play called MacBeth and I didn't find it very flattering:

Eye of newt, and toe of frog...

...not a great start is it?

...Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,

Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing... 

and so on..and on...

So great, I find out that this is all to do with witches - as if we didn't have enough to contend with in those days we got lumped along with some of the most unpopular people in society!

I'm still looking through his other works but I'm hoping I'll find something a bit better than this. Plus I've been referred to a book called The Animal-Lore of Shakespeare's Time. Let's hope there were some people around at that time who had something good to say about frogs.

A frog's advice on bullying

You humans always criticize "simple" creatures like us for our behavior, but what about yours? Who do you enjoy being so mean to each other? I keep reading that bullying is a big problem for children, but even you adults keep up this nasty habit – and even if you're not directly involved you turn a blind eye to it.

I've run into my fair share of bullies and I've found that you have to confront them whenever you can. Sadly, you can't rely on others to step in there and help you...

It was early one fine spring morning

While my lazy neighbour was snoring

I hopped out to get some food

But ran into a toad who was quite rude

He landed in the mud with a squelch

And began to yodel and belch

It was a most unpleasant combination

In fact it was an abomination!

His arrogance knew no bounds

As he continued with his disgusting sounds

He cried, “I’m the foulest toad in the west”

“And scarin’ frogs is what I like best!”

“Go get me some flies you green fool,”

He grunted as he began to drool

Suddenly, I was overcome with frog pride

And kicked his wobbly backside

The filthy brown lump let out a scream

As he rolled down the bank into the stream

“Why’d ya kick me so hard?” he cried

“I was only joking,” he lied

What a coward he turned out to be!

Did he really think he could mess with me?

Now he’ll know what to expect

If he doesn’t show us frogs respect!

Get ready for Save The Frogs Day!

I am full of froggy excitement in telling you about Save The Frogs Day on April 30^th ! Save The Frogs Day is the world's largest day of amphibian education and conservation action and is organized by our fantastic frog-loving pals at SAVE THE FROGS. Urgent action is needed as we frogs face so many threats. A lot of you may take us for granted, but believe me, we enrich your lives in more ways than you can imagine.

Thanks to the Save The Frogs organization, scientists and volunteers have held over 1,600 educational events in 60 countries to educate people about the plight of us friendly frogs and teach humans about ways to protect amphibians. Their website is full of wonderful facts that show people how important we frogs and our amphibian relatives are for the environment – and basically, just how general cool we are. Why wouldn’t you want to do more to keep us around?

I highly recommend a visit to their fantastic gift shop. My family have been going crazy over the wonderful presents I’ve given them from there. My Uncle Krustnut, who is a musician, says that the SAVE THE FROGS! Guitar Picks are the best he’s ever used and help him put an extra bit of twang into his songs. Ever since I bought him a pack of them, he’s been rocking out the pond every Friday night!

Always rely on frogs if you want to predict the weather

Humans seem to be obsessed about the weather. In England, it is customary to discuss what the weather is going to be like at every opportunity – I’m not sure why since everyone knows that it will rain anyway. For an English frog that’s probably pretty useful that it rains as then their lovely skin won’t dry out. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be too pleased if it actually started to rain frogs. Thankfully, I’ve never been caught up in such a bizarre and uncomfortable situation, but apparently there have been a number of such incidents recorded through history. As there are very few eye witness accounts, and since these phenomena have been documented by humans (with their tendency to exaggerate), who knows how reliable they are?

Anyway, I digress. Today, I wanted to talk about predicting the weather, which has turned into a multimillion dollar business. There’s a whole human science to the way it’s done involving fancy, high tech meteorological analyses and lots of complicated-sounding words and technical terms I can’t get my head round. Yet, we frogs have known about the weather for centuries and we’ve never had to rely on junk and nonsense like you.

Watch how well I swim compared to you!

Some humans guessed that we had some idea about what was going on but they had no idea about how to harness our secret skills. For example, in some countries, they would shove a frog in a jar filled with some water and insert a little ladder. These naïve humans decided that if the weather was going to get better then the frog would climb the ladder, whereas if it was going to rain the frog would go back down the ladder. Uh, hello? Who on earth came up with that crazy idea? Do you really think we climb ladders in the “wild”? I bet my ancestors had all sorts of fun fooling those crazy people who forced them into those jars. I’d have taken great pleasure in climbing up that ladder and watching you get drenched in a sudden downpour.

The real way to understand the weather is to simply watch us – yes that’s right – watch us and show us some respect, rather than squeezing us into uncomfortable glass containers and making us do stupid things. If we’re out and about, it probably means something exciting is about to happen…so get out there and learn something from us.

What frogs think of humans

Quit staring at me!

Long ago, I had to live in a zoo – I think that’s what it was called – in a kind of weird glass enclosure with fake scenery (pretty cheap quality too if you ask me) and poor artificial lighting (did anyone ever ask me if I wanted it to be so dark?). It was a pretty easy life I suppose, but very boring. What used to irritate me more than anything else was the way people used to come up to the glass to stare at me and my fellow inhabitants and talk about us as if we couldn’t hear them. I didn’t mind the children so much as they were just curious, but the adults used to talk about us as if we were idiots. “Look at that fat frog over there” or “Doesn’t that big frog look stupid” or “Why doesn’t he move when I hit the glass?” would be the sort of annoying comments I’d get.

Well did you ever think what I thought of you and your gawking companions? Thanks to this blog I can now put the record straight and tell you how I perceive humans (yes I too can use fancy words).

Slow down and have some fun

Rush, rush, rush and moan, moan, moan – that’s all humans seem to do. Yes, so many of you (with some exceptions) look and sound bizarre to us frogs. You run around, freaking out at the slightest issue (or other people) and then complain about how miserable your lives are. So if you’re not happy why are you rushing to do things that don’t actually cheer you up?

And what’s this obsession with electronic machines and gadgets? People spend their lives fiddling about with devices and making their eyesight worse by staring at tiny screens. Sometimes, this strange activity is supposedly to communicate with other humans. Can’t you just meet your friends and talk directly to them? And what’s this silly craze for playing games? The one that drives me really mad is that Candy Crush game. Do you realize how stupid you look glaring at those colored shapes moving around and the inane grins on your faces as you do it? What’s so exciting about moving onto another level of this ridiculous activity? 

My advice to you is to just sit back, preferably in a shallow puddle of stagnant water, let out a large croak and watch life go by at its own pace...

Welcome to the world's first blog by a frog!

Yes don't worry, you read the title correctly! Frog philosophy is here to bring happiness to the world!

Throughout the course of history
Frogs have been considered a mystery
Yet hidden away, covered in mud and slime
They have witnessed the greatest events of time
So here is the world's first dedicated blog
To present life from the perspective of a frog
Via news, views, random thoughts and croaking
May you find the posts both fun and thought-provoking