Guy Finds Adorable Little Animals Hiding From The Hurricane
“So I went to put away my wind chimes…”
As Hurricane Dorian pressed toward Florida, Patrick Smith was rapidly preparing his home in Belle Isle for the storm.
He grabbed the wind chimes off the corner of his house and noticed they had a duller sound.
Flipping over one of the metal tubes, he discovered a tiny tree frog hiding inside. But it wasn’t just one lone frog attempting to escape the storm. To his surprise, every tube sheltered another member of the frog family.
Smith posted a video of his discovery on Twitter Monday evening, along with the caption: “So I went to put away my wind chimes for #HurricaneDorian, and…”
This wasn’t the first time tree frogs — an invasive species in Florida — had taken refuge in his wind chimes. “They like to sleep in the chimes during the day because it's protected from sun, wind, and excessive water,” Smith wrote on Twitter.
But this time was different: "We had never seen so many frogs inside the chimes at once," he told Newsweek.
When asked by people on Twitter how the tiny frogs managed to get inside the wind chimes, Smith explained that the little animals use their sticky feet to climb up the walls of his home and into the tubes of the chimes, which hang 10 feet off the ground.
With the storm looming, Smith knew leaving the frogs in the wind chimes wasn't an option. Instead, he released them in his backyard, where they would have plenty of shelter from wind and rain.
“All the froggies are safe and accounted for," Smith wrote on Twitter. "They found spots to hide deep inside the leafy palm fronds behind our backyard pond!”
Smith's act of kindness has since gone viral — with over 1.5 million views in the past three days.
As of Wednesday, the Category 5 winds that struck the Bahamas have been downgraded to a Category 2 storm. Very little damage is expected in Central Florida, so it seems the frogs are in the clear.
While those in Florida may have escaped the worst, Smith asks on Twitter that anyone moved by his post consider donating to hurricane victims in the Bahamas.