A foggy spring day

The first signs of new growth are appearing around Roundtop Mountain! This morning I saw the leaves of the (pick one) 1) yellow dog-toothed violet 2) yellow trout lily 3) adder’s tongue 4) fawn lily were up. No signs of flower stems yet though. And the leaves of the one-day wonder, the bloodroot, are also breaking through the ground. That’s pretty impressive, considering I still had snow on the ground a week ago.

The robins are singing, as are the juncos, who will soon be heading north again. More phoebes have arrived and call from both sides of the cabin. I also had a pair of golden-crowned kinglets at the cabin this weekend. I didn’t see any insects, but they were busy little things, so I’m sure they found something. It took me a while to identify them. They like to be in the higher branches of the trees, so I never get very good views of them, even with 10x binoculars, and seeing more than their bellies takes a bit of luck.

Mud remains everywhere, as are puddles and gushing seasonal streams. With the amount of water through these temporary streams, right now it’s hard to imagine that they won’t run all year long, but they don’t. Last night I saw a frog, too, my first of the year. It hopped in front of my headlights as I was heading back to the cabin after dark and was gone before could get out of the car to find out what kind it was. It wasn’t small enough to be a peeper or large enough to be a bullfrog. It was the size of a green frog or leopard or pickerel frog.

 

Spring may have arrived later than usual, but the season is doing its best to catch up. 

Vernal pool with frog

Can you see the frog in today’s photo? It took me a while to see the frog when I was studying this vernal pool near the cabin. Even its eyes look like bubbles on the surface. Isn’t that clever?

I thought the frog might be laying eggs, but I couldn’t get close enough to tell.  My feet were already wet, as I hadn't planned to go bog wallowing when I started out on a short hike.  One thing about all the rain that’s fallen this spring is that the mountain is full of these vernal pools. They are great spots for frogs and tadpoles. When I hike with the kids from adventure camp, we always look for raccoon and opossum tracks here as those predators haunt pools like this one for those tadpoles. Sometimes I think the kids are as excited by the various water bugs that ply the vernal waters as they are by the tracks.

This year the pools are plentiful and deep, though they will still disappear by August, if not before. Perhaps some of the tadpoles will survive to reach frog-hood, though I can’t believe that many of them will. They must, though, since the ponds are full of frogs.

You lookin' at me?

I’m starting to think that frogs will take over the world—at least the part of it that includes Roundtop. Here’s what it’s like here now: hot, humid, hazy, with 2"inches of rain in a thunderstorm that begins between 5-5:15 p.m. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Or is that ribbet, ribbet, ribbet? The two words are nearly the same, n’est-ce pas? And I’m starting to think the local frogs all have attitude. They know they are soon going to be taking over the world. That’s why I’m getting the slimy eyeball from this one.

Usually frogs are shy creatures, disappearing into the water before you know where they are sitting, refusing to return to their perch for an hour after they make that leap into the pond. Not this fellow. He leaped and then immediately returned, eyeing me with disdain and willing me to move away so he could hop out of the water and return to his fishing spot.

If this weather keeps up, it won’t be long before that frog won’t even bother to leap into the water. Frogs will be the kings of the forest.

Seriously, the 2" of rain every evening, all falling within 15-20 minutes is getting old. And the forecast doesn’t show an early end to it. I’d need a wet suit stay dry in my back forest right now. My weed whacker took one look at it and fainted. I’ve completely given up trying to keep it walkable out there this year. Maybe I’ll just wait for the first killing frost to clear it out. That sure would be easier.

The Trouble with Frogs

Baby Dog has discovered the joys of frog chasing. Last evening she gaily galloped around the edge of the pond, scattering frogs by the hundreds. I tried to count them but eventually gave up. Then I tried to estimate the number of them and that didn’t work too well either. Last year when I counted 73 frogs, they were easy to count. They leapt into the water one by one, right after the other, like some kind of frog "wave" like you see at a sporting event.

This year there are so many of them that a dozen or more will leap all at once, making an accurate count virtually impossible. So I tried to estimate them like I do with a sky full of Broad-winged Hawks. It’s not the same thing. Frogs are gone quickly. Broadwings at least give me some seconds to pick a spot in the sky, look at the dots and try to figure out how many there are.

My best guess is that there are something in the neighborhood of 300 frogs in this pond. After I got to a count/guess of 150, I was only halfway around the pond, and I gave up entirely. Baby Dog was too far ahead, racing off-lead along the edge. She seemed to really enjoy making those frogs leap into the water. She was trying to start a second lap around when I finally go her to come back.

Frogs Around the Pond

I fully admit that this is likely the worst frog photograph you have ever seen. I know it's the it's not the frog photo I wanted to take or post. After months of waiting and various attempts, this is the best frog photo I've been able to come up with. Very disappointing.

Last year, at some point during the summer, I counted 73 frogs leaping into the water as I walked around the half-mile circumference of the new pond. This year, there are easily double, if not triple that number. When I walk around the pond it's like a froggy ballet, one after another, leaping from some invisible spot along the pond's edge to the invisible safety of the water.

I've tried sneaking up on them. I've tried walking slower than slowest super slo-mo known to humankind in hopes I wouldn't scare them. I've tried sitting immobile for what feels like hours in the broiling sun hoping they will think I'm a stone or a stump or something and return to their pond-side perches. No luck. These stupid frogs are too smart for me. I give up.

So here's my frog photo, such as it is. You can just barely see this guy's eyes and head peeking around the edge of the log. It's a green frog, which is what most of the dozens of frogs currently inhabiting the new pond are. I have heard several bullfrogs, too. Since I haven't been able to get closer, I don't know if any other species are here, perhaps pickeral or leopard frogs.

Green frogs, also known as bronze frogs, are the most common ones in this area. There's been many stories locally about how native frogs and salamanders were decimated by acid rain, which caused breeding to fail. Much work was done to improve that situation, though many streams and ponds have been slow to recover. Perhaps because the new pond is, well, new, the water here is benefiting from that work in a way that is not seen as dramatically in pre-existing ponds. Perhaps it's because the water in the new pond is periodically replenished with fresh water from the nearby Beaver Creek that acidity here does not appear to be as problematic as elsewehere.

Whatever the reason, the local frogs are thriving and numerous, though they sure aren't willing to pose for pictures.