Protecting The Parsley !

Litoria ewingi (Southern Brown or Ewing's Tree Frog)

I've had brilliant parsley this year. It didn't go to seed although all plants are self-sown.
Anyway, I wanted a bit for dinner last night and as I shone my little miner's light onto a
patch, I sprung this little bloke. I raced back to the house to grab my camera, fully
expecting it to have bolted, but no, it kindly posed for one shot then it was gone.



I've been quite concerned regarding the stability of local frog populations because of the
drought and absence of water for breeding. Last year, after some reasonable rain, there
was enough water in the 'Frog Dam' to provide reproduction habitat. L ewingi did reasonably
well and I was able to follow development of some babies as they left the dam and colonised various plants such as my raspberries and cymbidiums. I suspect the above frog to be one of
those juveniles.

Via a windmill, I have been able to maintain a decent water level in the 'Frog Dam' and have been enjoying frog opera almost every night for the past few months! L. ewingi is in there
again and I'm so pleased numbers have increased over the past couple of years.