The frogs are singing!! One hundred times louder than this recording! Did you know that all the male frogs living near the pond want to attract females to the same breeding site, but each individual male frog also wants to attract females to his specific territory. So what do they do?
Instead of trying to outperform one another in a croaking free-for-all, they work together! The frogs avoid call overlap by taking turns between silence and croaking; when one frog rests, another croaks. This alternating back-and-forth makes it possible for each individual frog to be heard amid the chorus, and it also results in a symphonic chorus of carefully orchestrated acoustical frog croaks that attracts females to the site. Talk about collaboration.
We had lots of snowmelt last year after 5 years of drought. All of this water meant more tadpoles resulting in frog song in every direction from our farm. This sound makes my heart sing. Because drought is in recent memory, I think of times when spring walks down our road offered no frog song.
But who are these frogs singing to me?
Lots of the frogs singing are boreal chorus frogs, tiny beings (less than 4 cm long). I have never seen one. Maybe this is the year? Time to don the rubber boots and search the edges of the water. What else will I observe?
Throughout the summer, I see wood frogs in our garden. They are a little bigger than chorus frogs (4 - 8 cms long). I read that when they sing, they are using energy at 50% of their resting metabolism. After all, what’s more important in nature than leaving offspring?
The third kind of frog we might have here are northern leopard frogs - a species of special concern here on the prairies. They grow up to 11 cms long and use three different types of seasonal habitat. While boreal chorus frogs and wood frogs nestle under leaf litter through the winter, northern leopard frogs look for a body of water deep enough so that it doesn’t freeze right down to the bottom. Once spring comes, they like to breed in shallow marshes and then spend their summer foraging in moist uplands. These habitats need to be connected to each other in some way. Although I have not yet seen a northern leopard frog in the wetland across the road, it contains the deep water, the shallow marshes and the moist uplands leopard frogs require.
Why are northern leopard frogs a “species of special concern” on the prairies? One of the main reasons is habitat loss resulting from agricultural drainage and filling in depressions with soil, cultivating upland acres and housing developments, along with the increased frequency of droughts and being run over by vehicles. In times of drought, northern leopard frogs often don’t breed at all. No frog sex = no frogs.
As always, wonderful to have you around our kitchen table thinking about the importance of these small remnants of land. It’s been a “sexy” conversation today. Please leave us some of your frog stories. We would also love to hear your frog watching hints and secrets!
Source: https://reasons.org/explore/blogs/the-cells-design/frog-choruses-sing-out-a-song-of-creation
“Where will the frogs sing?” is the collaboration of two rural settler artists creatively responding to the beauty and destruction of remnants of land in the aspen parkland of Saskatchewan. Things we wonder about: what is our/your relationship to the land? What does society value? Why do these small remnants of land matter?
Frog Sex