by Carla Caruso

As Kermit the Frog once said “it’s not easy being green”.

It’s also not easy being seen when it comes to frogs in the Adelaide Park Lands. But they do abound, according to Steve Walker, an education officer and FrogWatch SA coordinator with the government-run Green Adelaide.

“There are three species of frog that are pretty common in most of the creeks and drainage lines in the Park Lands and likely to be encountered by people,” Steve says.

In order of the most common, Steve says the species are:

1. Common Froglet (Crinia signifera) – “call is a cricket-like ‘crick, crick, crick’”,

2. Eastern Banjo Frog (Limnodynastes dumerilii) – “call is a loud bonk”, and

3. Spotted Marsh Frog (Limnodynastes tasmaniensis) – “call is like a toy machine gun”.

Steve adds: “They’re all most likely to be heard, rather than seen, but the Eastern Banjo Frog is often encountered crossing paths on warm, wet evenings.

“It’s also the largest one in the region, so that might add to its chance of being seen.

“The Mount Lofty Ranges Tree Frog (Litoria calliscelis) can also sometimes be found in some of the Park Lands – I’ve certainly heard it calling at Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi [Park 16] – and the translocated Peron’s Tree Frog (Litoria peroni) has been recorded around the metro area, so might also be a possibility.”

If you were to go searching for any of the species, Steve reckons your best chance of seeing them would be to “look under rocks and logs, along the edge of the water, or within aquatic vegetation”. Though, as he says, “they’re pretty good at hiding”.

As for why Steve’s partial to frogs, he says “that’s a really difficult question to answer”.

“I just do, what’s not to love? There’s a frog for every occasion. They come in such a variety of sizes, colours, and shapes.

“They’ve adapted to lots of different habitats, so have an amazing variety of breeding methods, physical features, and structures.

“There are big ones and little ones, colourful and dull ones, cute and ugly ones, wet ones and dry ones. Some hop, some don't.

“You can find them in some of the hottest, driest deserts or in cold, polar regions, tropical jungles, and suburban yards. They have some crazy behaviours and they’re an extremely important component of food webs.”

We can’t argue with that!

FrogWatch SA, by the by, is a citizen science program, which encourages schools, community groups and individuals to record high-quality data to help monitor how our frogs are tracking. In August, the program won a SA Citizen Science Award.

Frogs, of course, are important environmentally as healthy populations generally indicate a healthy environment.