There we were, enjoying our three course meal in the wilderness camp in the Kimberley. No mobile phone, no Internet, no TV. Just fun conversations and social interaction. Quite pleasant really. So logically, the topic shifted to wildlife. Frogs actually. Green tree frogs, to be precise.
Our adjacent dinner companion explained her recent experience of discovering one of these cute critters in her accommodation’s toilet, just as she was about to set down and attend to business. Her human hosts offered to relocate him but explained that he lives in that system, so he is just as likely to return. Our companion chose to relocate her business activities instead.
Of course, I was able to respond in kind. My first shower in our lovely Broome-based resort and there was this bright green frog right smack bang in the middle of my enclosed shower area. What a funny trick, whoever played it, as that thing looked so real, so bright green, so rubbery-like, so Kermit the frog-like. But then it moved, it wriggled, it shaked. Holey Moley, what now?
Thoughts racing. How do I capture it and liberate it, without hurting it? How do I pick it up? Does it have any diseases? Will it squirt me with some exotic fluid? How can I respond kindly and gently and not alarm it, while I was rescuing it?
Next I was contemplating frog behaviour. It seems fearful, it was shaking, it was seemingly helpless with this big human monster peering down on it from height. I felt compassion and wanted to allay this frog’s anxiety. There was no escape, only my knowledge that I would do it no harm.

But how did it get in the shower? It certainly could not have come up through the small gap in the plug-hole grate. Just jumped in the shower as someone left the door open sometime.
Or maybe, it did come from below. But surely, if so, this frog had clearly taken the wrong path, fallen from its tree, navigated up the wrong drain pipe, got lost, needing to find clear air again, and somewhere in its unfortunate journey, it had found a plug hole, daylight, and after great effort, defying gravity, it had scrambled through this very tight grid, into this open place. It was damp, and now it was ok. It could rest a while, to contemplate its next move. But then the human arrived.
Oh shit, its body language seemed to communicate. Options, death by this human, or back in that damn drain. In that moment, I felt so concerned for that vulnerable frog. There was urgency in his shaking movements, he was swaying back and forth, my sense was his adrenaline was flowing, if frogs have such. This was crisis time.
But then, this green marvel knew better. Soon enough, to my absolute astonishment, this bright green critter had reconfigured its broad body to somehow wriggle through this narrow grate, otherwise known as my plug-hole. He was gone, he knew better, and I was left in awe as to how clever he was.
But hey, he is a tree frog, what the hell is he doing in a drain? My dinner companion thus confirmed that not all tree frogs live in trees. Perhaps there is a profound message in that observation. Meanwhile, nature never ceasing to amaze or educate us.