It’s a rock! It’s a bubble! It’s a California Tree Frog!

Above the steep drop of Kitchen Creek Falls, near Campo, we found three California Tree Frogs, each the size of my thumbnail.  On the rocks, hunched up to make themselves small, they look like lumpy bumps of granite. In the water, they sink down below the surface in floating masses of algae bubbles and blend right in. Their mottled skin can pass for many things. but they reveal themselves in their motion: in the still pond, nothing else was moving but their tiny legs, pumping away. I dropped my hand underneath them in the water, and then brought it up, leaving the frogs high and dry on my palm. They sat still for a long time, and then — wheeeeee! Arms and legs stretched out like a star, they made the leap, like paratroopers fearlessly diving toward earth. Splash! They swam away!

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