Late this afternoon I was settling in to do some writing.  I’d opened my book file, found where I’d left off, and began to work.  It’s been so lovely around here during the day we haven’t had to close up the house and turn the A/C on.  Therein lies the rub.

     With everything opened I can hear all that goes on outside.  I was quite enjoying the sounds of the birds.  That is until they began to screech, squawk, and scream bloody murder.  I went out the back door to see what the heck was causing of all this dismay among the birds.  I should’ve known.  I should’ve guessed. 

     One of our bullfrogs has decided that flies, bees, worms, and large moths aren’t enough.  He now has his eye on our feathered friends.  We call him Goliath Frog.  Goliath Frog mooches worms when I’m feeding them to the Koi.  Goliath Frog is fat he’s far from starving.  When I walked out into the yard, I saw a large flock of screaming starlings and grackles trying to aid a full grown starling who happened to have Goliath Frog attached to his tail feathers.  The bird was flapping about the pond making a gallant effort to lose the frog.

     Goliath Frog wasn’t ready to give up.  He had hold of his stomach’s desire.  The other birds were shrieking and flapping their wings, making dives at the determined amphibian.  Finally, the bird shook Goliath Frog loose and flew for the wires over the alley.  For a moment, I thought I was in a scene from Hitchcock’s The Birds.  There were starlings and grackles by the hundreds on the wires and in the trees.  They must have come from miles around in answer to the distress calls of the now almost tail featherless starling, AKA Goliath Frog’s intended supper.  It’s almost time for Goliath Frog to take a trip.  He can join our other bird eating bullfrogs, Frogadile and Frogzilla at the river.