All this effort to build a new home for a Peron's Tree Frog

Is this intended to be a new home for a Peron's Tree Frog?

Well Brendan and I didn't think so, when we were working on it yesterday. We thought we were removing the old (very old) weatherboard cladding, insulating the wall, in anticipation of re-cladding the wall with new HardiPlank cladding (weatherboard replacements).

But this frog knew what it liked. 

A large green sheet offering 

wonderful protection from prying eyes

- until we disturbed it.

Peron's Tree Frog on the side of my house (being repaired)

The Frog had snuck in over night, and Brendan found it the next morning, safely tucked out of sight behind the green "sarking". The frog climbed out from behind the sarking when I tried to photograph it in the hidey-hole it had found.


Incidentally, if you click to enlarge the image, you will see (just see) why this frog is sometimes called the "Emerald-spotted tree Frog". Hardly a distinctive feature when one can just make out the tiny spots, with a close-up image. The name Peron's Tree Frog (Litoria peroni) works or me.

 Here is a close-up of his left hind foot and one of his front toes.

Tree Frogs have these amazing toes, with large pads

which allow them to climb so well - even on glass.

Hind foot of Peron's Tree Frog

Here is a close-up of the distinctive eye

It always appears to have a cross-cut mark in the pupil.

My Blogging colleague Martin has written

a brief but observant post about the eye of this species.

Note the ear and eye of Peron's Tree Frog

Clearly it could not safely stay hanging on to the wall during the day. And we needed to do some more renovation and refurbishment work. So I tried to persuade it to move, which it did, by jumping down to the ground.  Then it hopped quickly away into the safety of the dense cover of shrubbery of my garden.

 Just for the record, this is how the wall looked after the day's work.

New cladding over a fibre-glass insulated wall, 

with "sarking" for additional weather-proofing. 

"Sarking must be impermeable to liquid moisture

yet still allow the free flow of water vapour 

from the inner surface of the cladding".

The new HardiPlanks are then freshly painted.

For those patient readers who have been following the gradual development of my home renovations, we are now on the final wall, and ought be finished the actual "construction phase" shortly.