When Laurel Mackie climbed a tree in her yard earlier this summer to investigate the mysterious squaking that had been emanating from the birdhouse her husband had put up in May, she got a surprise.

The head that poked out of the hole in the birdhouse didn’t have any feathers on it. And, what she first mistook for a snake turned out to be a frog.

“Whoever heard of a frog living in a birdhouse,” said Laurel Mackie.

It appears to be a gray tree frog, which has suction cups on its toes for climbing. Wild animal expert Dave Sparks of Windham said they are common, but most people don’t see them.

“They stay in the trees,” Sparks said.

The tree frog in Laurel and Bill Mackie’s yard is about 3 inches long, and Laurel said it has the capability of changing colors from green to gray. Besides being a good climber, their tree frog has good jumping capabilities for a little guy, clearing four to five feet in one hop.

The Mackies call the tree frog their “yard guard.” “He’s the watchdog,” Laurel said.

The tree frog doesn’t fear people and pops its head out if someone speaks to it. Friends of the Mackies have become familiar with the frog and talk to it when they visit.

“He loves company,” said Bill, who, despite his use of the male pronoun, does not know the gender of the frog.

Sparks said tree frogs come down from the trees to reproduce, laying eggs in water. The eggs hatch into polliwogs, which mature into tree frogs. The Mackies have a pond behind their yard and they live near the Stroudwater River.

The tree frogs have a higher pitch than other frogs, but once the breeding season is over, they don’t make much noise. “Their sound is tropical like in a jungle,” Sparks said.

During the mating season in the spring, they chant all night long until about 5 a.m. Bill Mackie said the tree frogs call one to another from a distance. “It sounds like an army coming,” he said of the racket.

These days, the tree frog in their yard suns itself in the entry hole of the birdhouse. Judy Walker of the Maine Audubon Society in Falmouth has heard other reports of tree frogs living in birdhouses adjacent to driveways. She said lights near driveways at attract insects at night, providing frog food.

The Mackie tree frog disappears at night. Walker said the tree frog likely goes out at night to hunt. The tree frogs feast on bugs, flies, ants and mosquitoes.

Sparks said the tree frogs hibernate in leaves and rotting logs in the winter.

The tree frogs sometimes climb the side of the Mackie home, and one recently fell from a deck umbrella. “You never know where you’re going to see them,” Laurel said. “They adopted us.”

The Mackies love the wildlife they see on their property. They have spotted deer with fawns, moose, turkeys, coyotes and fox and bullfrogs. “One is like the Budweiser bullfrog,” Laurel said.

“You never know what’s going to happen here,” Bill said. “They call it the funny farm.”

A tree frog nests in a birdhouse in Gorham.Bill and Laurel Mackie check on the frog that climbs trees and lives in a birdhouse in their yard on Brackett Road in Gorham.

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