I was laying in bed under a mosquito net and settling into my sleeping bag, when I heard an incredibly loud ‘pop, pop, pop, eeee-arrghhh’ just a few metres away in the darkness. I thought I’d dreamt it at first and continued to lay listening . . . until the same noise repeated – it was unbelievably loud and though I hadn’t heard this particular call before, I knew that it could only be a frog making the sound.
I crawled from under the net, grabbed my boots, torch and camera . . . and began hunting through the foliage.
In my experience, whenever you get close to a frog that’s been calling into the night – it will stop, until you move away again. This frog was different, and even though it sounded like it was right in front of me, every turned leaf revealed nothing but more leaves – all the while the call would be sounding.
Eventually I found the frog, clinging to a large palm leaf and to my surprise it didn’t try to hop away – instead it sat quite happily, chirping as I took my photographs.