First frogs

Little Pond

Another warm night has begun.
I step into my tall wading boots, slip under the cover of a long dark jacket, and ease beneath the slender strap of the light which will hang from my shoulder. At my hip this large beam will freely swing, slung like a purse, as I walk hands-free exploring the edge of Little Pond in the hours approaching midnight. My final garment-- the heavy winter hat, one that would appear to be far more than is needed on this evening late in March, I casually stuff into one gaping pocket. For it is warm and mild, a night lit in moonlight revealing a faded field bathed in a mist, thick and welcome on my face.
I step out into the night, where from across the yard, the frogs are calling.

Spring Peeper, male calling

Like distant sleigh bells, the ring of spring peepers drawn to the basin of Little Pond sounds sweet and gentle, a light dusting of sound floating with ease on the heavy night air. I walk with each step, closer, down the path. And my light reveals the sudden retreat of hundreds of night crawlers, each shrinking back into its small hole as my footsteps approach their 8 to 10-inch emergence onto the lawn. In this warm and damp night, they have risen to revel amidst the short dew-studded grass before tunneling deep, beyond the reach of any summer drought. From the woods beyond Little Pond, a barred owl calls, and calls again.
I cross the berm into the shallow water of this vernal pool, 30 feet across and almost perfectly round. The sweet ring from small frogs mounts now with such volume that above it no other sound is heard. From my pocket, I retrieve the heavy hat and tug it snuggly down, covering my ears—a muffler against the din that has become an almost painful roar.
With a sweep of my light in a wide arc from side to side across the pool, the tiny tree frogs are hushed in an instant, surprised into a silence that quickly fades. In seconds, the first brave soul perched and projecting from a blade of grass, calls out into the night once more.
And the uproar begins again.

Spring Peeper breeding pair in amplexus
(smaller male clasping larger female as she lays eggs)

Wood Frogs' eye shine across Little Pond

In the beam of my light, the eyes of wood frogs return a golden glow as they float motionless across the darkened surface. Their quacking call, as if half dog, half duck, gathers them here from the woods yards away to breed in the waters of Little Pond. Large, ruddy females, eagerly clasped by the small, dark males, have already left compact clumps of eggs, golf ball-sized dark orbs, which by morning will have swelled to the size of grapefruits. Communal egg masses, gelatinous rafts several feet across will stretch to cover this quiet corner, moored to first-growing grass at the edge of Little Pond.

Wood Frog breeding pair

Wood Frog eggs

Wood Frogs leaving eggs in communal egg masses

Northern Leopard Frog breeding pair

Northern Leopard Frog pair in amplexus

Northern Leopard Frog eggs

Leopard frogs, too, large, but barely seen as the dark brown and green of their bodies blends with the tangle of grass at the edge, call to one another in a low, ticking snore.
These first frogs of spring, at any other time buried in the depths of the woods or under the cover of tall field grass, now stare back at me from the cool water of Little Pond. With my light, I have stepped into their darkened world.

Spring Peeper and Northern Leopard Frog
(for size comparison)

Night Life

If you could see this darkness, feel this night,
heavy under clouds, dripping with dew,
thick with frogs and moths, drawn to the first blushing blooms of milkweed,
you would know what it is to walk here.

It’s been weeks since I have visited my pools, as in the probing visit of this night--
most days just a cursory glance, as I walk on to the woods,
following the wings of dragonflies,
watching birds high in the trees above.

Yes, the shallow water remains.
And, though almost choked with a mat of green snarls encroaching from every edge, the deep, clear, dark water sustains life, napping through the sunshine of a hot summer day.
But, tonight, when, even through a closed window, air conditioner groaning beneath this blanket of humidity, frog song penetrates to within a brick house, I cannot help but wander there.
Every bit of this field is calling.


Orange eyes aglow, hundreds of buff-colored moths, feathery antennae curling back and forth, feed at the heavy heads of grasses, bending their arching stems low to the ground, and cover the large, rosy globes of milkweed blossoms, strong and sweet with nectar.


The heat from a very warm day has remained into the night. Glass beads on every blade of grass glisten with dew. My bare arms as well, quickly covered with a layer of moisture, soon tingle with an itch from every flying insect drawn to me, my light a beacon into blackness that readily swallows it. Even my face, misted and framed in curls brought on by this bath of steaminess, especially interesting to the smallest moths, darting in darkness past mouth, nose, eyes and ears.
A head net, next time--I must remember that.

Northern Leopard Frog, Rana pipiens

Waist-deep in vigorously growing poison ivy, I wade through green to the pool’s edge, my tall spotted boots stepping carefully into the cool water, the soft, woven mat, broken in places perfect for even the largest of frogs to hide in wait.

American Bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana

All across the surface of the smooth water, small mouths rise to grab air, then disappear with the flash of an ivory belly to hide themselves in layers of brown detritus, inches deep beneath my feet.
Shapes I recognize easily—and was hoping to see tonight, caught in the beam of my light through cola-colored water--salamander nymphs, still sporting gills like Elizabethan collars, but soon to lose them, strengthen new legs and walk off to the woods. Having started the season dry, this spring has brought heavy and frequent rains—a good chance that the water will remain weeks longer, and another generation graduate to lives on land.

The movement of a winding, striped form beside my toe startles me. And, though I know he should be here, I’ve never seen him--a Northern Water Snake, browsing the brown bottom, rising to look across the surface. Then, equally startled by finding me in his pool, he dashes below and disappears.

Northern Water Snake, Nerodia sipedon

From the center of this basin, I am surrounded.
First by the ring of dark water, then by the green at its edge. Framed by small Red maples, their toes wet.
It is as if I am drawn into a fanciful scene, where all possible life converges in a single place for a moment--the deer, rabbit, and raccoon, beside bluebird, mink and snake, while fish, frog and turtle swim.
A snapshot, so complete, yet unlikely.

Cope's Gray Treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis

Yet, as I move toward his fervent call, raised to the night air, as others do the same, I am sure, for this moment, I am witness to a collision of lives not always like this.

Stirred from quiet rest, postured to project,
their song from every tree,
“Welcome to my world. We’ve been expecting you!”

Cope's Gray Treefrog
vocal sac inflated

(all photos enlarge with a click)

On a warm, spring night

On a warm, spring night, I stand,
under darkness brought by the clouds, heavy with rain,
feet touching cool water, clear and still,
to hear the hundreds of small voices,
propped just above the water’s surface.

Spring Peeper, Pseudacris crucifer

Clinging to small stems,
toes strongly wrapping,
or broadly floating ahead of each step,
with eyes that glow like jewels from across the pool,
they welcome me with song
into their midnight madness.

Northern Leopard Frog, Rana pipiens

Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica

In all these others,
there is but one that is silent,
watching me,
with the gentle face
and sweet, small velvet feet
that I adore.


They have come home.

Spotted Salamander, Ambystoma maculatum, male
Little Pond Pool, Butlerville Ohio
March 5, 2009

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