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Chorus of Spring Peepers

© N. Lou Lyons

Now is the time to place a name with some of the different species in nature that can be heard singing around the state. More than any other season, spring offers a rich selection of mating songs for our listening pleasure. In more remote areas outside the city, a tuned ear can pick up a half dozen or more species of birds at any given time, each with their own distinct song. Learning to identify them can be a challenge.

Everyone with the ability to hear has no doubt listened closely to some lovely melody from a bird in search of a mate. But you have not really experienced the fullness of spring until you have heard a chorus of spring peepers calling for a mate.

Spring peepers Psudacris crucifer are frogs. Psudacris is Greek for false locust, perhaps because of the chorus they make, and crucifer for cross, which is an identifying mark on the back of the peepers. The song of a lone spring peeper sounds more like a single note from a bird instead of an amphibian. Although the toes and fingers of these frogs have special discs that allow them to climb limbs, you won't find peepers up high in trees. They will be found near water sources around woods and forests. Ponds, lakes, swamps and wet drainage ditches become their breeding grounds.

The male calls for a female, sometimes as many as 4000 notes per hour. Like birds, females choose a mate by the sound of the call. Once the female lets the male know she is interested, the male holds onto her until nearly 1000 eggs are deposited on submerged sticks, branches or plants. Usually one week goes by before the eggs begin to hatch into little tadpoles.

Amphibian is another Greek word meaning double life. Frogs have two distinct stages of growth; the aquatic and then the adult terrestrial. After hatching from eggs, tadpoles remain and grow in the water for about a month and a half, two months, then metamorphosis begins. While they still have tails, the tadpoles crawl out of the water onto land and complete the transformation into a frog. Full grown, peepers only reach about an inch and a half in length. That's not much mass for the noise they make.

Once you have heard an army of peepers, spring will not seem to arrive each year until you hear the sound again. The very best time to enjoy those alluring sounds of little frogs attracting a mate is after dark. The song fills the night air with a powerful, hypnotic, trance-like chorus of nature's will to survive. Absolutely beautiful to hear.

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