Come for a Walk in the Snow With Me!

It was a lovely, mild morning, sunny, with blue skies. As cold as it's been lately, the change was just amazing, so off we went into the outdoors with great big smiles on our faces. I only needed a jacket for my walk into the gamelands, the Scotia Barrens, not far from our home. My husband took his bike and planned to jog, and conditions in the woods were perfect for that.

The ice has been covered up by a nice snowpack that's been worn down by hikers and their dogs. It's as good a walking (or jogging) surface as you could wish for this time of year. You can see the quality of the snow-covered path as it stretched out before me in the photo above. Follow me! Nothing but blue skies!

And so I went for my walk, and I looked all around three of my favorite ponds, but everything is frozen over there now, and covered in snow. I had my tunes box with me and I was doing some serious jammin', alternating my walking with some dancing thrown in, as I am wont to do. (If you go to the Scotia Barrens and see a crazy woman dancing down the path, don't be afraid; it's only me, the Crazy Dancing Crone of the Scotia Barrens!)

As I came back through the woods in the end, my husband hailed me from the edge of my favorite little pond. "Go ahead and follow my tracks and at the end of them, you'll see one of the strangest things I've ever seen in the woods," he said. And so I did. And he was right: it WAS one of the strangest things I have ever seen! Check the extras for a photo.

The bizarre sight that awaited me was an extremely large, dead frog at the end of a crawl path from a tree to within a foot or two of the edge of the pond. It looked like a huge frog had come out of hibernation too early, or perhaps been dragged out of its resting place.

As there was blood on the frog, I assumed it had been predated upon by something after it emerged, though I didn't see any tracks around it. It was a shocking sight, and I immediately realized we were in the midst of a big murder mystery, or perhaps an episode of CSI: Scotia Barrens! Was foul play involved? Or was it some kind of big mistake on the frog's part, of awakening too early?

My husband suggested I try to put the frog back where it came from, in case it were merely injured, and could continue its sleep, or be resuscitated. But when I tried to pick it up, I couldn't; it was frozen fast to the snow. So I did the best I could. I wrote a sad little message in the snow, drew some hearts around it, said how sorry I was, and left it there.

But when I got home, as we turned it over and over between us, I was curious enough that my brain kicked in. I remembered I had seen papers attached to the trees at my pond (and many other ponds) saying that amphibian research was taking place under the direction of a PSU Associate Professor of Wildlife Population Ecology.

I photographed the pages then, thinking - as a total amphibian enthusiast - someday I might need or want to contact that person. As I tag all of my photos with keywords, I found the pictures easily. So I located his contact information and emailed the main researcher two of the photos I'd taken, showing the frog and the crawl path and the blood.

He wrote back almost immediately saying that he was not sure exactly what had happened, and he himself had never seen a frog path through the snow (ha!), but it was probably something from the Rana family, likely a wood frog or a green frog (more likely the latter, and I agree; it was MUCH larger than a wood frog).

He asked me where the deceased amphibian was located, and I did better than that. I emailed him a photo of the pond from before it all froze and explained exactly where the remains were to be found. He told me he might go out to look at the gamelands ponds on Saturday, and if he did, he'd be sure to investigate!

So that is the tale of our pretty walk in the snow, and at the end of it, our strange CSI: Scotia Barrens encounter with an impressive, though sadly deceased, amphibian! Now, I find there is a thing I want to say about all of this, so I'll spit it out right now.

I am a person who takes photos of dead creatures. I also take pictures of bones. I find these things fascinating, though sad. (I don't usually share such photos, as I think most people find it upsetting, as do I.) But often, the only time I get to see these creatures up close is when they have departed this life.

So I try to look, and help if I can, and then go home and look it all up, and learn. I don't LOOK away. I don't WALK away. I want to see what there is to see in this world, and I want to KNOW as much as I can know, even if it is sometimes unpleasant, or hurts me to see and learn. I also find it important to try to aid creatures I find hurt, dying, dead, or in distress. I don't know how to be any other way.

I have two photos, so let's have TWO songs.
First is Pat Benatar, with Don't Walk Away.
Second is John Mellencamp, with If I Die Sudden.

Possibly related:
Three Magic Moments at a Vernal Pool - 3/26/21 blip
The Great Bullfrog Zombie Apocalypse - 3/13/21 blip
Lazarus of the Amphibian World - an article about how amphibians freeze in winter and thaw in spring (yes, they're amazing!)