Frogs and Toads!

 I'm about to fly to Asheville today, and before I go, I'll copy a piece I just wrote for our Prairie Hill Newsletter about the frog and toad survey that I've been doing this spring. Here it is: (Woops, the first time I pasted this in, the formatting was crazy. Now it's better! Sorry.

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In response to alarm about the declining numbers of amphibians in the Iowa landscape, the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources organized a yearly frog and toad survey in 1991. Data has been collected from 516 different sites around the state, and 15 frog and toad species have been identified. More volunteers were solicited this year, and two of our Prairie Hill women answered the call. Mary Ann and Nan went through an evening of training, including learning the calls of all 15 species. Fortunately, perfection was not required, just a willingness to go out once a month on nightly surveys to a fixed number of sites.

Mary Ann drove around the back streets and roads of Johnson County, looking for wetland sites not already claimed by other amphibian enthusiasts. We started out with eight sites, stretching from a swampy area several miles west of Prairie Hill and then continuing back through Iowa City streets and ending at the east entrance of Locust Hill Park. Each survey team commits to doing a night survey in April, May and June of 2021. The survey must start at least ½ hour after sunset. At each site, records of temperature, time, wind, sky cover, noise, moisture, and car distraction are noted. And then the volunteers stand for at least 5 minutes, listening in the dark at the edge of each site, listening, listening.

Our first night was disappointing. Of the eight sites, most seemed devoid of frogs or toads. At least we heard none. At the first site, at a deserted swampy field well out in the country, we stood at the side of a large expanse of dark dampness, listening. We heard nothing, and couldn’t even see each other’s faces. And then suddenly lights started coming at us across the field, heading straight toward us, and coming faster than we liked. We looked at each other, paused, and then ran to the car. Time to go!

Of the other seven sites that first survey night, at only two did we hear any frog or toad, and it took determined listening to even pick out the one or two individuals who were calling. We identified them as American Toad and Boreal Chorus Frogs. We drove home somewhat dejected, wondering if things would improve in the future.

Last night we went on our second survey, one month after the first one. And indeed we heard many, many calls. We eliminated two of our previous sites, so we had six left. And four of them had an abundance of frogs and toads! We identified Boreal Chorus Frogs, American Toads, Eastern Grey Treefrog, and Cricket Frog. The calls were so loud that often we didn’t even have to get out of the car to hear them. The days of rainy weather must have been a perfect setting for amphibians, and we were greeted by truly loud choruses of frogs and toads at all but two of our sites. These two were wooded, so we concluded that wood scapes are not favorites for our target populations. We drove home smiling with success, a bumper crop of frog and toad calls for our records. Who knows what June will bring?