BASSWOOD SHUTTERS

These cute little frogs are in a tank at the aquarium. That tank is so dark that you don't see them when you walk past it.
My friend Helene didn't even know there was anything in the tank until I showed her one of these shots.

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The Red-eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) is an arboreal hylid native to Neotropical rainforests in Central America.
The Red-eyed Tree Frog is a small-sized tree frog, reaching lengths of about 5 - 7 centimeters (3 inches). Its dorsal surface is green of varying shades, and its ventral surface is white. The sides of the frog are purple or blue, with vertical white stripes and orange toes. Young frogs are typically brown in color and turn greener as they mature, although adult frogs can change their color depending on mood and environment.[1] Both females and males have bulging orangy red eyes with vertically narrowed pupils, resembling the eyes of domestic cats. Red-eyed tree frogs have soft, fragile skin on their belly, and the skin on their back is thicker and rougher. Males are generally somewhat smaller than the females.

Bright markings along the sides and limbs reduces predation. Most animals that prey on A. callidryas (some bats, snakes, and birds) often rely on their vision. When the frog moves to avoid the predator the bright colorations flash into view (hence their name, flash colors) and throw off the predator. This is achieved by leaving a ghost image in the visual field of where the frog was originally. This confuses the predator and gives the frog time to hide. These flash colors may also deceive predators by making the frog appear poisonous.
Red-eyed tree frogs are not poisonous and rely on camouflage to protect them. During the day, they remain motionless, cover their blue sides with their back legs, tuck their bright feet under their belly, and shut their red eyes. Thus, they appear almost completely green, and well hidden among the foliage. Their eyes seem to glow in the dark.
Red-eyed tree frogs are mainly carnivores. They prefer crickets, flies, grasshoppers and moths. Sometimes, they will eat smaller frogs. For froglets, fruit flies and pinhead crickets are the meals of choice.
During the mating season, when rainfall is at it highest, males of the red-eyed tree frog form choral groups to entice females to small water pools where their eggs are then laid and fertilized by a chosen male. The males do this by climbing onto the backs of the females and rubbing their hind limbs along her rear flanks of the female. The eggs develop into larvae and later into small tadpoles. After full metamorphosis weeks later, the juveniles that survive the first few weeks crawl back into the undergrowth and security of plants in the vicinity of these pools, often in the hollows of tubular plants like bromelias.
Red-eyed tree frogs inhabit rainforests from southern Mexico, through Central America, to Northern Colombia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agalychnis_callidryas

My paternal grandparents' home in Kinder, Louisiana, ca. 1972.

The land on which this house stood and from which the surrounding farm sprung were purchased during the Great Depression. It originally was the city-dump. What a great bargain.

The 'dump' became a 'gilded-age' palace to the next generation of children who found a love of life, learning, wonder, and a Garden of Eden on its acres of fertile ground.

On that front porch, behind those louvered windows, a Christmas tree stood decked-out in its colored lights, signalling to a generation of grandchildren that very soon their fondest wishes would be fulfilled.

On that back porch, behind those windows on the right, were twenty-years worth of National Geographic Magazines. They never ceased to intrigue your's truly.

In the bedroom, behind those windows on the left, many young exhausted grandchildren reluctantly fell asleep on the endlessly squeaking cast-iron bedsteads. None of them could dream what the next morning held in store.

On this land we picked grapes from a large vineyard, snatched handfuls of strawberries from our grandmothers patch, or eagerly climbed ladders into huge bushes to pluck blueberries which were to became part of our breakfast, lunch, or dinner feasts.

Here we would fish in the sun drenched pond behind the house, or squirm as our doting fathers would dig in the compost heap for earthworms to bait our hooks.

Sometimes we could observe bananas growing on the banana trees planted in the backyard or get sick eating too many of the out of season pecans which we little tykes had to leap to reach.

I could never acquire a taste for the persimmons which grew at the front corners of the house and thought all they were good for was to squish under your feet as they rotted on the ground.

I did, however, acquire a lasting sympathy for "June Bugs" as they met their watery demise in large contraptions my grandfather built to reduce the numbers of their destructive larvae.

It is amazing how sheer wonderment can dispell the voracious mosquitoes, tolerate the agonizing, endless itch of red bugs, or 'chiggers', and even ignore the frequent bumps, bruises, and skinned knees.

Today, everything in this photograph is gone. No tree or structure still stands. A mere vacant lot. No more fond memories to be made here.

This place where so many children feasted on handpicked grapes, blueberries, huckleberries, strawberries, fieldpeas, and caught brim & catfish from the pond is forever gone.

The tiny rice-farming town is now awash in luxuries owed to the casinos that have made Kinder, Louisiana (known on highway billboards as 'Coushatta') into a place too busy for the slower paced, more meager pleasures of life.

(12 x 7.6 inches)