...
Only time I was ever quiet about a batrachian discovery was in the middle of the night while camping with friends beside a lake in the Sierra above Tahoe. It was summer and we had not bothered with tents. Long hike up and fire season so only used a little camp stove to warm up some dinner, eat it and crash in our sleeping bags.
I was awakened by a thupping noise... thup... cosmic silence... thup thup... cosmic silence... thup thup thup... thup thup... thup....
It kept on, and so, under a canopy so full of stars it was as bright as a full moon, I sat up to get a good look around me. It was a toad migration. Each about the size of a fist, very fatly and placidly making their way from some toad stronghold to the lake. Hunnerts of 'em. Just lazily thuppin' right over and around us in the high sierra summer dust under a blanket of cosmos. I was ecstatic... but my friends were sleeping, so I squealed with glee into the inner half of the universe.
pipe up any time....
