Palmdale resident, Brian Davies, has been named FrogID Week’s 2020 Top Frogger.
FrogID Week is Australia’s biggest annual frog count and aims to measure the health and distribution of frog species around the nation by tasking Aussies to record frog calls through the free FrogID app.
Running from November 6-15, Davies managed to record 323 submissions resulting in over 900 verified frog records, scoring himself a $500 Bunnings gift card as well as a video conference with FrogID Lead Scientist, Dr Jodi Rowley, for taking out the title of Top Frogger, but according to the frog enthusiast it was all a happy accident.
“We’ve always had frogs on our property and almost every night my wife and I go to sleep listening to the frogs calling,” Davies said.
With a large pond on his property, Davies said he’d come to enjoy living side by side with the amphibians who he said turned up in the strangest of places, including one particularly memorable encounter with an Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog in the peg basket, and it’s that closeness that sparked his interest in frog conservation long before he knew about FrogID Week.
“Years ago my wife and I actually attended a seminar at the local university on frogs and improving their habitats and ever since then, we’ve tried to make our place more frog friendly, so when we heard about FrogID Week, we just thought it’d be a great way to learn more about frogs,” Davies explained.
Initially starting off with just recording the frogs in his own backyard, Davies said he didn’t have to go too far to find new calls to record.
“I had a good idea of the places where there’d be frogs, but I really am amazed at the sheer mix of calls that I was able to record from within a kilometre of my house.
“Honestly, there’s so many frogs around this area that it made me feel like I had a bit of an unfair advantage,” Davies said.
With his records indicating that 15 different species of frog could be found on his property alone, Davies hopes that his Top Frogger title will help inspire interest in frog conservation on the Coast.
“I can admit that I’m a little bit obsessed when it comes to frogs, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to be crowned Top Frogger.
“There’s so many things that you can do to help frogs, it can be as easy as planting particular plants to adding a pond to your property.”
Davies believes that frog spotting and recording could also be a great way for parents to introduce children to practical conversation and citizen science and he encourages anyone with an interest to consider downloading the FrogID app.
“There are so many spots here in the valley just teeming with frogs.
“Bangalow Creek, Sawyer Park and the university campus at Ourimbah are some of my favourites, and my top bit of advice to anyone interested is to get out in your own area and find the spots where the frogs are.
“The calls and the mix of frogs can change from day to night and even over the course of a day, so you never know what you could discover,” Davies said.
Dilon Luke