Dead Frogs Everywhere

Amphibian guts galore – I seem to have stumbled across a crime scene, stretched over 50m of road.
(Nasty picture warning – avoid if squeamish!)


Dead frogs – some flattened, some burst, some frozen, mid-movement, cause of death unknown. It seems early in the year to spawn – I thought it would be too cold for for them. But no, they seem to have been making their way towards the pond in a nearby quarry. Out of the ten that I find, maybe three are flattened, passing cars. It’s the others that intrigue me – their tiny fingers raised in some last melodramatic plea, spawn piled on the tarmacadam alongside.
What do I do? I take photographs.
– Dave
Dead Frogs. Copyright 2005 Dave Walsh
Dead Frogs. Copyright 2005 Dave Walsh
Dead Frogs. Copyright 2005 Dave Walsh
Dead Frogs. Copyright 2005 Dave Walsh
Dead Frogs. Copyright 2005 Dave Walsh
Dead Frogs. Copyright 2005 Dave Walsh

daev
Chief Bottle Washer at Blather
Writer, photographer, environmental campaigner and "known troublemaker" Dave Walsh is the founder of Blather.net, described both as "possibly the most arrogant and depraved website to be found either side of the majestic Shannon River", and "the nicest website circulating in Ireland". Half Irishman, half-bicycle. He lives in southern Irish city of Barcelona.

10 comments

  1. Here in Indiana, there is a statre park that straddles a fairly major roadway. Every spring frogs mate in the lakes on either side of the roadway and often attempt en masse to cross the road, apparently to mate with the hotter frogs across the way. The carnage looks very much like your pics.

  2. “Small Frogs Killed on the Highway” [James Wright]
    Still,
    I would leap too
    Into the light,
    If I had the chance.
    It is everything, the wet green stalk of the field
    On the other side of the road.
    They crouch there, too, faltering in terror
    And take strange wing. Many
    Of the dead never moved, but many
    Of the dead are alive forever in the split second
    Auto headlights more sudden
    Than their drivers know.
    The drivers burrow backwards into dank pools
    Where nothing begets
    Nothing.
    Across the road, tadpoles are dancing
    On the quarter thumbnail
    Of the moon. They can’t see,
    Not Yet.

  3. dead frogs,
    dead frogs,
    lying dead on the road,
    dead frogs,
    dead frogs,
    yet not a single toad.

  4. Coast to coast
    day to day
    friends and family
    but no one cares no not for frogs
    they kill them day and night
    some try to fight for lives
    for dreams
    for everything it would seem
    but none prevail on the lonely highway rails.

  5. Poor little frog
    was trying to lay eggs
    I like them better
    when i’m dining on their legs

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