Toad of Toad Hall

We are having El Nino or Nina weather pattern this summer and this means some of  Australia suddenly gets more rain than it bargains for....

So last week here in Willunga we had over an inch of rain which is very welcome in our southern dry climate... but not so good in other parts of the state which received inches in hours which washed away large sections of roads and railway tracks.

The rain here though, made the bark of the eucalypts bring out these wonderful colours...

click on the photo to get a better look....

The next day I found this poor little green parrot dead, in front of the Studio window.We have had an influx of those and also the Rainbow Lorrikeets which chatter and screech away in the tops of the tree.

Yesterday when Kym was digging over some of the vegie beds, getting them ready for Autumn plantings, he dug up what he thought was an old potato...He was about to take it to where he had deposited some stray onions from another bed,when the potato tried to hop off...

So here we have Toad of Toad Hall, stripped of his flamboyant costumes and naked as the day he was born-.....

 It is of course, a Burrowing Frog and the first one I have seen here in the thirty odd years we have lived in this place. I did have the Burrowing Frog at my Watervale cottage back in the late eighties, but those were more brown and darkly spotted. I could not find an image on Google the same as this frog so cannot give its proper name sadly.... we buried him back in his little bed and hope he does a lot of good in the garden.....we need all the help we can get...