CAPE CODDER (Orleans, Massachusetts) 07 April 06 Jeepers creepers: Where are those spring peepers? (Rich Eldred)
It's been a peepless spring on Cape Cod.
By the calendar and weather, spring is here but hasn't been ushered in by a chorus of spring peepers. The tiny thumbnail size tan frogs have been quite quiet.
The blame appears to fall on one of the driest months on record.
"It's amazing how late they are," declared Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary director Bob Prescott. "I'm just starting to hear them and it's two or three weeks late."
A strong chorus of peepers from a swamp can be deafening, but so far, only scattered frogs are calling.
"Actually I had heard reports of people hearing them in mid-March, the 13th or 14th, those were a warm couple of days," reported Bob Cook of Cape Cod National Seashore.
Cook has been guiding frog call monitoring projects in the Seashore for the past several years, so he pays extra close attention to amphibian vocals.
"I heard two individuals 10 days ago," he noted. "And I've heard them on and off the past week or two."
But Cook admits the full chorus is missing.
"We had a cold spell. And then a spell that was unusually dry," he said. "It's a little late for vigorous choruses, but the early arrival was earlier than usual."
Peepers live in uplands
There is water in the ponds but spring peepers live in the uplands. They only return to the water to breed.
"They need that humid night, that mugginess in the air, which we didn't have all March," Prescott said. "One theory is that they are at the base of a tree trunk (hibernating). The tree warms up and it gets down to the ground and that gets them going."
Cook agrees.
"I think it's more the lack of water and the stimulus that provides. The temperatures were pretty warm the last couple of weeks," he said.
Sunday was a foggy enough night for frog travel but only the last couple of days have seen rain. Perhaps that will start the migration.
Despite the dry weather, the larger ponds are full.
"It seems like there is plenty of water in the ponds they rely on," said Melissa Lowe of Mass Audubon. "No one has reported any sightings to our nature line and we usually get barraged when the sightings first start."
The smaller vernal pools haven't fared so well.
"The water table is so low," Prescott said. "The smaller ones are drying up as the plants come to life and start to draw down the water. That's not good."
Prescott thought spotted salamanders, which use vernal pools, might miss a breeding season.
"It's really a race, once they're in the ponds, for the eggs to develop," he said.
The little peeper tadpoles can evade fish so they may be able to push back the start of breeding season.
Cook's crew will start sampling and recording vocals at 10 sites within the Seashore next week. April is the prime month for peeper peeping. They prefer cloudy days and cool to mild evenings.
"My sense is it's usually Memorial Day when the choruses die down," Cook said. "In the work we've done here, they've been found in every wetland type present. They're not specialists at all. In large kettle ponds, most of them are associated with shallow marshy areas, and that's where they are concentrated."
It's only the male peeper that's heard. The females listen quietly.
"The male frogs will stay in the breeding pool and mate as many times as they can," Cook said.
The eggs hatch into small tadpoles that turn into adults in about a month. The tiny frogs don't stay in the water. They spend most of the summer in the woods, in the leaf litter.
"In non-breeding season, I occasionally get them on my deck," Cook said. "And in the autumn you can hear individuals peeping from the woods. South of our headquarters, at Marconi, they call from the trees. It's the first sign the dog days of summer are over."
The first frogs to breed are actually wood frogs, another upland frog, which is tan to reddish in color, about 2 1/2 inches in size. Their call is somewhat like a duck's.
They've been out in Orleans for the past week or so, and, Cook said, they have received a photo of one from Pocasset. That's a late start for them as well.
"Wood frogs are primarily vernal (temporary) pool breeders," Cook said. "They have a short hydro-period. We'll get pickerel frogs in April. They have a 'snoring' call."
American toads breed in April but they are only found on the Upper Cape. Fowler's toads are on the Outer Cape.
Where are those spring peepers?