As I was walking the dogs with my daughter at twilight over the weekend, one of the dogs went after a small creature in the long grass. I investigated and found a frog trapped against the barrier errected down by the creek dividing the site from where they are doing road repair. I picked the frog up. It was rough and vibrated in a kind of muffled croak. I looked at it in the twilight.

“Put it down,” my daughter said. “You’re scaring it.”

I certainly didn’t want to do that. I put the frog on the other side, the creek side, of the barrier and went home to figure out what I’d caught.

To the best of my twilight-observation, the thing it was a Plains Leopard Frog. Although I looked through Flickr Creative Commons, I couldn’t find an image. So the words will have to suffice.

Description: A rough-skinned frog with brown skin and spots on its back. Two back ridges.

Size: About 4 inches long (head and body only).

 Range: From North Texas up through Kansas.

Diet: Insectivourous, will also eat other smaller frogs.

Habitat: the Plains Leopard Frog lives in creeks and waterways that cut across the grasslands. The creek in our neighborhood is just about right for it.

Population status: Well-established.

Listen: Click this link and the clicking call of the frog is heard when the site opens.