Eating Frogs Legs

This is by way of another retrospective post from our sadly now complete recent tour around La Belle France. I’m still engaged in processing our digital images trying to select those that I think will make a representative web album of our trip and I’ve come across a shot that I perhaps don’t want to include but which I think shouldn’t go unpublished.

Nature is one of our shared interests and takes up quite a bit of our time on these trips. Some places appeal to us simply because they are rich in wildlife. One such place is Camping Les Brugues, a dairy sheep farm just outside Fanjeaux. The fact that it is also one of France’s finest campsites doesn’t hurt. The site borders a small lake which seems to be teaming with wildlife including birds, dragonflies, coypus and frogs; thousands of frogs. We met one couple a few years ago who shut all their windows and vents because the nightly chorus of frogs kept them awake. [Ed: Sad; I lie awake enthralled listening to it.]

We are all familiar with the French eating grenouille. We’ve even given them a less than complimentary nickname because of it. Here, though, is photographic evidence the Frogs do, indeed, eat frogs’ legs. Well, at least, they try. I can’t help but think that this one tried to bite off more than it could chew, though. Normally, the frog’s legs would be separated from the hapless frog before anyone attempted to consume them. Not in this case.

I knew that tadpoles were cannibalistic and would greedily devour each other but I thought frogs were supposed to catch flies rather than each other. This particular green cannibal was so tenacious that, when I snapped a little too close and scared it, it jumped into the lake and still did not let go.

We’re not sure of the outcome but Carol thinks she saw a less-than-happy looking frog on its back which subsequently disappeared. There was clearly no way this frog was going to swallow something half its size and survive so we suspect that contact was eventually broken.

Gruesome, though, isn’t it?