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When we think of the signs of spring, we often
think of things we see. A bluebird on a fence post, daffodils swaying in
the breeze, ladybugs on new plants in the garden. But one of my favorite
harbingers of spring is not a sight, it’s a sound.
I’m talking about our Western Chorus frog. Their
call, which sounds distinctly like someone running their fingernail over
the teeth of a plastic pocket comb, can be heard as soon as the ice starts
to melt from the small streams, ponds and irrigation ditches they call home.
But before we take a look at this little guy with the big
voice, let’s talk about amphibians in general. Amphibians, like their
reptile cousins, are cold blooded animals that generally lay eggs and have
no fur. Amphibian actually translates to ‘double life’, indicating
how this group of vertebrates spends part of their life in the water, breathing
through gills when young and laying eggs in the water to reproduce. For
our area, the amphibians consist of the salamanders, frogs and toads.
Typically, frogs are smooth-skinned, have long hind limbs
for leaping, and live in or very near water, while toads have warty, drier
skin, with shorter hind limbs for hopping, and live on drier land. Frogs
also have very small teeth, while toads do not.
Our Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata) is a smooth-skinned
leaper, not a warty skinned hopper. Its scientific name translates to “false
cricket frog with three lines on its back”. Measuring from 3/4 to
1 1/2 inches long, this frog can come in a variety of colors, from gray,
brown, reddish, olive or green. Look for the three stripes down its back,
the two on either side extending from the snout through the eye to the tail
end.
If you should get a chance to see this frog, feel lucky.
While the call is distinctive, and during the height of the breeding season
the din almost seems to make the ground hum, these frogs are far more often
heard than seen. Camouflaged coloration, small size, and the uncanny ability
to sound like they are calling from a different location than where they
actually are can make them difficult to spot.
The males, of course, do the serenading in an effort to
attract females. The chorus is usually heard in the evening, but during
the height of the breeding season, chorus frogs will call during daylight
hours as well. Females lay clusters of 30-75 eggs on underwater vegetation,
and can lay up to 1,500 eggs during a season. Eggs take 10-14 days to hatch
into tadpoles, and metamorphose into adults in about 60 days. Tadpoles eat
underwater algae while adults eat insects, snails, millipedes and other
small creepy crawlies. This year’s new frogs won’t join in the
mating chorus until next spring.
After the breeding season, Western Chorus Frogs continue
to live quietly near water until the weather turns cold, rarely migrating
more than 100 yards from the site in which they are born. Come winter, they
bury themselves in the mud and hibernate until early the next spring, able
to withstand temperatures slightly below freezing. They live on average
only two years. You can expect to enjoy this wonderful sound of spring into
June.
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