Very Loud Frog and Other Noisy Wildlife

A few weeks ago I was on the couch watching some evening TV and I kept hearing frog sounds and at first thought it was coming from the TV even though whatever I was watching shouldn't have had frog sounds as part of the background. I turned off the sound on the TV and went to the front door to investigate and we have the LOUDEST FROG IN THE WORLD living across the street. He is LOUD. I was totally reminded of the big mouth frog joke that goes something like this:

There was a frog with a really big mouth travelling around one day. He came to a barn and saw a cow.
“HELLO COW, WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR BABIES?”
The cow replied, “Milk.”
The frog nodded. “OH, IS THAT SO.” He then hopped along to a fence and saw a horse.
“HELLO, HORSE, WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR BABIES?”
The horse replied,”Hay.”
The frog nodded, “OH, IS THAT SO.” He then hopped along to the river and he saw a snake.
“HELLO, SNAKE, WHAT DO YOU FEED YOUR BABIES?”
The snake replied, “Frogs with big mouths.”
The frog mumbled, “oh, is that so.”

We hear him each evening now, I guess it's that time of year and he is looking for a lovely girl frog to come and share his yard. Or whatever it is frogs make loud noises for.

We also have some very noisy birds in the back yard. We used to feed the birds but took down the feeders a few years back because of the expense and the mess and the cats trying to get the birds and then knocking into the feeders and spilling all the food out. But, we were in Walmart one day and saw a big display of bird seed and thought we would try it again because it is nice to be able to watch birds from inside the house, not to mention the cat entertainment factor.

Instead of buying a new bird feeder, we decided to repurpose the bird bath that was in the front yard that no bird ever took a bath in and bring it around to the back yard and put bird seed in it. At first it was ignored because the birds were not used to finding seed in our yard but within a week or so the scrub jay found it when Keith put some of his peanuts in shells in it and scrub jays apparently like peanuts. We would watch as he would swoop down, grab a peanut, then fly off. Then we saw him bury some of the peanuts in the flower bed, so scrub jays must stash food for later like a squirrel.

Soon enough, the smaller birds found the seed and then the doves came along and now we have quite the assortment of birds coming into the yard. And they must be very happy birds because they chirp. And sing. And CHIRP. And SING. And sometimes it gets incredibly LOUD.