Peter Schwenk's Place

It’s still technically winter, but the weather was nice today (sunny and around a 60F high) so I decided to take a walk for my lunch hour. I took my usual route along Creek Road, a narrow bit of old asphalt that follows White Clay Creek to the north out of Newark, Delaware.

I hadn’t gone very far when I started hearing the familiar peeping of frogs in the marshy land between the road and the creek beyond. I was blown away by this sure sign that spring was upon us so early. The weather still has the potential to be cold with some near-freezing temperatures at night, but I guess the frogs know what they’re doing.

After my turn-around point along the road on the way back to the main part of town, I started to notice peeping from the watery ditch along the road. Lo and behold, there were frogs there, too. I got a crappy picture with my phone. I combined a recording of the peeping with my blurry photo.

These guys weren’t messing around. I saw some new egg masses floating in the water in the ditches.

I did some poking around on the web, and I’ve tentatively identified these frogs as Wood Frogs (Rana sylvatica) using this web site. They’ve got example recordings of the frog calls. Both the calls and the appearance seem to be a good match.

I’m a big fan of spring and summer, so this early sign of spring’s arrival is a welcome if not ominous sign.