NEWS & OBSERVER (Raleigh, N Carolina) 08 March 08 Editorial: Peeping songs
We can see spring approaching, as bulbs poke through the wintery duff. We can hear it approaching in the ever-increasing birdsong, against a background of sighing winds in the still-bare treetops.
And if we listen closely enough, we can almost hear the sound of roots stirring, sap rising and buds expanding.
Among the first voices to announce the winding down of winter comes not from the newly arrived bluebirds, nor with the restless gabbling of waterfowl. Instead it appears with the awakening of tiny frogs known as spring peepers.
Few who wander afield, away from the din of man's activities, doubt that the song of the peepers is one of spring's earliest harbingers. Their singing begins the first night that the ice leaves the pond, even before the first turtle emerges to bask in the sunshine.
The truism "the smaller the pond, the bigger the voice" fits this frog perfectly. Hyla crucifer is only about an inch long when full grown.
Peepers are nocturnal, living in marshes, lowlands and swamps. It is there, with their entire bodies quivering, that they engage in their nightly musical trilling -- a high-pitched whistle that some say is reminiscent of jingling sleighbells.
Herpetologists (or maybe they're frog-ologists) tell us that within a week of the peepers' announcement that spring is on our doorstep, serenades from leopard frogs and wood frogs will follow. Really though, it's not until the bullfrogs' bass tunes up that another spring concert season becomes official.
Peeping songs