Long winded, sorry.
We have a friendly neighbourhood cat and its housemate that seem to spend most of their days in our garden and rapidly come into the house if ever a door is left open.
Yesterday evening I was on the patio and could hear an odd noise, probably a bird I thought. Next thing the cat was sticking its head in a half empty bag of charcoal.
Investigating further, extricating the cat from the bag, there was a frog, possibly two inside which quickly jumped into the weeds and disappeared.
An hour or so later Mrs AC called me - large dead frog outside the front door with cat circling its kill.
I thought someone had stood on it as it looked as though its tongue or even intestines were sticking out of its mouth/flattened body.
Quickly picked it up and chucked it in the black bin before the kids could see it.
Mrs AC and I commented it was odd weâd had 3 dead animals in recent weeks in the garden - first a wood pigeon or collared dove I found decomposing, last week we found a healthy looking ginger/white cat dead on the patio close to the bird feeder (could it have died trying to eat one? Bird not bird feeder!) and last night the dead frog.
The dawn chorus woke us both early on our week off, later aided and abetted by Mr DIY next door using a drill at 7am.
I loaded the car up with tools to do some garden tidying at my late parentsâ house.
Oddly, I had a strange urge to check the black wheelie bin as I passed it.
Opened the lid and there was the frog sitting up proudly on the bag of heavy waste at the botton. I had to stick my upper torso into the bin to grab it and put it in a pool as if Iâd just tipped it over the bag of rubble might have squished it.
I find this very strange, why did I have this sudden urge to check on a dead amphibian in a bin? Was it a sixth sense of some kind as Iâd have wagered plenty that it was a gonner.
Anyone else seen frogs playing possum?