Spring Peeper on Daylily

What do you spy in this flower?

While I was breaking off old daylily flowers, I passed by an open flower and did a double-take! What the heck? I thought there was a leaf lodged inside one, at the base of the throat of the flower. I put my finger inside to flick it out, but stopped half-way in. I looked more closely, and saw a spring peeper! He must have spent the night there (to hide out from the tremendous thunderstorm and hard, driving rain that we'd had.)

Check out his/her coloration and patterning.

Did you know that the Spring Peeper is our smallest frog in Maine, and is one of our most common frogs as well? We just don't see them much, except during springtime when they are so incredibly vocal. This individual had the typical brownish gray coloration.

Male peepers are 0.8" to 1.2" long, while females are 1.1" to 1.5" long. No wonder the peeper I photographed fit so nicely down around the base of the pistil and stamen!  

"After breeding, some peepers establish home ranges between 1.2 and 5.4 meters in diameter around bark debris, logs, stumps, or other vegetation." (Hunter, Jr., Malcolm L. Maine Amphibians and Reptiles. Orono, Maine: The University of Maine Press, 1999. Print.) 

I found this peeper in my front stump garden. It is the perfect habitat for him/her, and there are plenty of tasty spiders, ants, and butterfly and moth larvae to munch on for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fun, fun, fun!