Whilst catching up with artist friends Angela Tiatia and Kieren Cooney in Newcastle, I met their neighbours Jackie and Steven who were raising rescued tadpoles in the backyard.

Another friend had found these little tadpoles in a gutter they were cleaning out and instead of flushing them away, they rescued the tadpoles and gave them to their friends to look after. It was great to share stories about the Green and Gold Bell frog preservation and research being done nearby on Kooragan Island and the survival of these endangered frogs in the suburbs of Sydney.

Listening in on these different encounters of collective care and neighbourly concern for the environment and frog ecologies of everyday people, researchers, volunteers and academics was enriching on moving.

These unexpected human, animal and landscape relationships speak to the desire to observe, watch and support life in all its varying forms, even in the environmentally compromised and ecologically disturbed places where our communities somehow continue to exist alongside things like extractive mining and toxic manufacturing.