'Ducks' without feathers

A Wood Frog sounds like a duck

You’re walking along a wooded road or a forest path in early spring and off to one side, you hear ducks quacking. Dozens of them, chattering away.

You look, but there are no ducks in sight, though there is water.

But if you look closely, you’ll see small, brownish frogs. Those are your quackers: You are hearing the chorus of spring mating calls of the Wood Frog.

These hardy amphibians crawl out of the earth as soon as the snow melts and the ground thaws. They head for the nearest water, usually a vernal pool surrounded by woods. There they mate and their eggs are deposited underwater.

Vernal pools provide ideal mating grounds for these frogs and Spring Peepers. These ephemeral waters have the advantage of being around in the spring, but are usually gone by late summer. Consequently, they can’t support fish, which would eat the frog eggs and tadpoles. And they last long enough to allow eggs to become frogs.

Scientists say many amphibians seem to be in decline. The good news about Wood Frogs is that their populations appear to be in good shape, even increasing, especially as the former farmlands of our region return to forest, allowing for more vernal pools.

This trend could continue, as long as wise land-use officials see the life-giving value of vernal pools and protect woodlands in which they appear.

Peeper keeper

Peep. Peep. Peep.

Choruses of spring peepers have risen from the woods. But how did those inch-long amphibians deal with the vagaries of New England weather that can swing temperatures from the 70s to the 20s in April?

To peepers, a sudden freeze or even a spring snowstorm is no sweat. Cold air triggers the frog's liver to create glucose. Blood brings this antifreeze to the vital organs like the brain and heart, keeping them from freezing. But the rest of its body — more than 60% of it — can freeze for weeks without harming the frog.

So on a walk in a wood on a cold spring day, you may find a small, frozen frog. If you put it in your warm hand, the iced peeper will simply melt and hop away, no doubt with a song in its heart.

Sour Swamps

As winter thaws out of the ground and opens the waters of our swamps, a characteristic sour scent appears. It tickles our noses with a strong smell that is far from perfume, but still has a strange attraction. 
 
We are probably smelling a soup of scents.  

Anaerobic bacteria, the kind that thrive in water and soil with little or no oxygen, give off hydrogen sulfide and phosphine gases as they feed on the products of decomposing leaves, grasses and other vegetation from the previous seasons’ plants. Those gases combine with others offered by freshly thawed, but decaying vegetation. Add to the mix the malodorous Skunk Cabbage, and you have a special blend of wetland aromas that can be found only in early spring. 
 
This pungent and pleasant scent signals renewal in these hotbeds of life. Swamps are where the new season really begins, a nursery full of not only stinky bacteria, but countless aquatic and land insects, small fish, amphibians, reptiles, mollusks, as well as wildflowers, that serve as food for other wildlife emerging from dens or arriving by wing. 
 
And so, though it arises from death, this sour scent is really a sign of life.

Somniloquent singers?

Long after its season of nighttime wooing has passed, the Eastern Gray Treefrog occasionally erupts in daytime song, but no one seems to know just why.

These arboreal acrobats that can climb glass windows as well as trees can also deftly snag an insect in mid-air as it passes by a branch. They feed mostly at night and sleep by day.

However, in late August, their brief, bird-like trills can occasionally be heard at almost any time of the day, especially if there’s been a shower. You might hear a call from one tree, then a response from another, and depending on how froggy your neighborhood is, two or three other treefrogs nearby may join in the exchange.

In the spring, their calls are part of the expected nighttime chorus of courting critters, but by this time of year, all that love-making is long past. So why sing when they’re supposed to be asleep? Perhaps they suffer from somniloquy and are just sleep-talking as they dream of happy, youthful encounters those long months ago.

Vernal Pools

In nature, little is wasted, not even puddles. At this time of year, nature’s puddles – officially known as “vernal pools” – are teeming with life.

Vernal pools form in the winter, last through the spring and dry up in summer. Found throughout our woodlands in sizes large and small, they are hotbeds of early spring activity. Frogs and salamanders crawl out of the forest’s leaf litter and make their way to the water to frolic and mate. Soon the pool is full of eggs, then tadpoles and salamander larvae.

To amphibians, the pool’s benefit is big: There are no fish to eat them or their offspring. The risk, however, is drought. The water must last long enough for the tads to reach adulthood. Clearly, the benefit outweighs the risk, for our woods still ring out each April with choruses of the popular vernal pool patron, Spring Peepers.

A bigger threat, however, is man. Too few know what vernal pools are, much less their importance, and no laws protect them. Many are threatened by development.

Dr. Seuss’s Lorax spoke for the trees. Fortunately, we have a few wise conservationists and savvy zoning commissioners who speak for the pools.

Peeper keeper

Peep. Peep. Peep.

Choruses of spring peepers rise from the woods in April. But how did those inch-long amphibians deal with the vagaries of New England weather that can swing temperatures from the 70s to the 20s?

To peepers, a sudden freeze or even a spring snowstorm is no sweat. Cold air triggers the frog's liver to create glucose. Blood brings this antifreeze to the vital organs like the brain and heart, keeping them from freezing. But the rest of its body -- more than 60% of it – can freeze for weeks without harming the frog.

So on a walk in a wood on a cold spring day, you may find a small, frozen frog. If you put it in your warm hand, the iced peeper will simply melt and hop away, no doubt with a song in its heart.