Songs of Spring

You’ve been hearing ’em for over two weeks now, singing their hearts out calling their lady loves to join them in irrigation ponds, snow melt, backyard ponds and mud puddles. They’re the true songsters of spring, soon-to-be-daddy Pacific Tree Frogs.

The persistence of nature in ensuring the survival of her kind is astonishing. Last night it was down to 19 degrees and I could still hear those tiny tree frogs belting out their love songs just before I removed my hearing instruments and went to bed at 10 p.m.

Temperature will eventually shut them down, but probably only because they can’t blow up their air sacks with ice crusting around their tough little bodies. The only thing that will really shut down the cacophony is a visitor to the pond; try sneaking up on singing tree frogs and you will see what I mean. It’s like someone shut off the switch.

If you sit down and get comfortable so you won’t have to move, it will only be a few moments before you’ll hear one timid chirp, then another, then two more and within minutes the whole chorus is singing again — no one wants to be left out.

Back where I was raised, on a small farm in West Haven, Connecticut, it was the Spring Peeper, Pseudacris crucifer, that sang the beautiful Song of Spring.

Not too long ago a lot of people feared western toad populations were going downhill, including Jay Bowerman, head honcho of the Sunriver Nature Center. However, things appear to be looking up for the toads, at least at Sunriver. I wondered why and then received the following e-mail from Jay after he visited Sunriver’s waste water ponds on a cold night:

“I was so excited by the aggregation of toads and bombarded with such high intensity acoustic energy from 10,000 tree frogs all calling that there was no way to get cold. I just had to get out of there before I lost my hearing.

“As far as the recovery of Western toads, my gut sense is that the toads are still in trouble. What we’re seeing in Penhollow waste water pond is anomalous but consistent with a growing recognition that toads are particularly suited to colonizing and utilizing newly created or newly disturbed aquatic sites.

“More toads bred in Lake Penhollow the year it was built than had bred in any site in Sunriver in the prior 10 years. There was a gradual decline in breeding numbers over the next 3 years, and since then it’s been up dramatically as the juveniles that “fledged” from Penhollow began to reach breeding age.

“Friday night I checked the two minnow traps I’d left in Penhollow the day before. One of them had 28 male toads in it, and the other one had 110 toads. And the lake was swarming with toads. By Saturday afternoon, dozens of pairs were busily laying eggs along the east shore.

“The winter conditions were favorable to toads throughout the region, so I expect that the breeding numbers will be higher at nearly all local sites than during low-snow years. However, those “high” numbers will prove to be far below a “high” year of 30 years ago. You remember what it used to be like.

“In the wild, it used to be natural “catastrophic” events that recreated toad habitat such as forest fires and volcanic eruptions; the guys at St. Helens reported a mind-boggling explosion of toads in the blast zone.

“Interesting, huh?”

That’s just a tiny sample of the things I enjoy about my friendship with Jay — his insatiable curiosity and ability to see things that I miss.

What is taking place at Lake Penhollow may also be happening at the Sisters and Black Butte Ranch wastewater ponds.

I wonder…