Because the most rewarding fruits of this science are certainly hard-earned.
Take this from a personal experience- an attempt to track down a common, yet elusively hidden species of frog.
Diana’s dearest roommate – Andrea (“Roomie”), was one of the lucky ones. Those fortunate people, the ones that animals are naturally drawn to, that is. A week earlier she had sent Diana a hilarious video of a large frog she had found around 10pm hopping along Gold Coast Lawn. Wow, did Diana wish she had that kind of luck finding those amphibious little devils. The last time she was able to observe a frog by chance was when it hopped onto her brother’s bike during a family vacation in Florida (circa 2010) – and hence her passion for frogs was born.
So Diana sought guidance from her aficionados of the amphibious. She knew that her track and field teammate, Leigh, had quite the naturalist experience with frogs, as she had worked in an ecology lab here at Dartmouth with Wood frogs. “You actually aren’t in the best timing for Wood frogs, by this warmth in Spring they’ve already laid their eggs and you won’t see many adults around.” Diana later wondered whether that was because of their life cycle or hibernation cycle.
But alas, Diana found her other great friend and teammate (and 2016 Writing Natural History Wood frog project veteran) Angela, who just happened to also be doing a frog project for her class this month. After asking her what frog species she was planning to go look for, she replied “some Spring Peepers!”.
“Spring Peepers?!” Diana replied.
“Cute little froggers!!” Ang explained.
Sure enough, within the next few hours Diana was knee-deep in preliminary research on what she indeed determined to be the most adorable tree frog in the entire Northeast, Pseudacris crucifer. She decided to go for it, and ended up choosing the exotic frog, not just the large chubby, ugly, easy to see toads.
According to the State of New Hampshire’s Fish and Game Department, “This species is seldom seen but often heard…”.
Seldom seen?! Great. This will be a challenge, Diana thought. But one I’m SOO ready to accept. Because these frogs are known for often being heard “…singing in chorus during evening hours.” If I could just listen for their beautiful cricket-like chirps, and really, really hunt with my eyes, maybe I could track one down. Seldom seen? Psshtt, right?!
She was ready.
“I don’t think I’ll have time to go with you and start looking for a while :/, but they probably come out around sunset.” Angela texted.
Diana looked by Mink Brook one nice evening, right around dusk, but still with enough light to see the frog if she found one. It had just rained the day before, so she came knowing that frogs often come out more in damp, gross weather. Nothing. She did not even hear any. But she left with some great observations of snails!
She came back to Mink Brook another time, this time a little bit later. She looked under branches and leaves in the marshiest of areas, keeping in mind that the frogs don’t like direct sunlight. Nothing. But on the way back up in the neighbor’s yard, she found a nice robin!
Eventually Diana decided that maybe ponds were much more prevalent habitats for these little buggers than river shores. So she went to Occum Pond, a bit later than dusk. She did not hear anything, but she did see two deer!
She eventually came to the fun, but unhelpful conclusion that it’s much easier to stumble upon things that you aren’t looking for than to nail down a particular organism, which was definitely making her discovery of Natural History equally more enjoyable and frustrating. But this did not distract too much from her determination to find, the one and only, Spring Peeper.
She figured that the mistakes she was making in previously not finding the frog were probably time of night. Frogs are certainly more nocturnal than Angela thinks, after all, Roomie found that frog hours after sunset, she thought. And maybe it had to be moister, crappier weather than just the day after rain. Maybe it would really be best to go out and brave an exploration during the rain.
And so it was planned. After a long, busy, rainy day and a long chat with Roomie, Diana decided: it was time. It was too rainy to risk ruining her nature journal, so she brought it out in a Ziploc bag. She would document each sense and thought of her journey as typed into her phone notes, and try her hardest to get the very best pictures and videos of anything she could find, and instantly journal it later. What she also did later, while the journey was still fresh in her memory, was sit down for a long while with her kombucha tea and use the timestamps on all of her photos to chronicle, in a detailed thriller, her late, arduous journey of perseverance that found the implausible – THE SPRING PEEPER.
THE FROG BLOG
Sunday May 14th – Monday May 15th, 2017
11:30pm – a journey through Occum Pond – light to moderate rain, no wind. Damp ground, high humidity. Accuweather “Real-feel” 42 degrees F.
11:34pm – “Be careful out there my roomie!” warned Andrea. “Don’t worry, I’ll be 400meters away!” assured Diana. Diana zipped up her oversized bright blue raincoat and double-tied her old white Saucony trainers. She picked up a big piece of cardboard to sit on the wet ground for observation if necessary. Armed with her nature journal and pencils sealed to protect from precipitation, she exited the back of Goldstein Hall, popped open her umbrella and clicked her flashlight. She trekked across the parking lot and started along the road by Dick’s House Hall.
11:37pm – She was soon elated– I CAN HEAR THEM!! Nevertheless, a distant but full chorus of exactly the collection of high pitched, not-at-all-ribbit-like peeps of the Spring Peepers she had recognized from the online recordings rang. She stepped over a deep puddle in the road, and noticed that there were three earthworms squirming and swimming (hopefully not drowning) in it! They looked stretched out and super gross, so she took a video and some pictures, just for Evan.
11:41pm – She passed Dick’s House, walking along the road with the houses that border the South edge of Occum, heading toward the D.O.C. house bordering the golf course, when she was startled by fast approaching footsteps. It was a random runner girl, wearing just a sports crop top and short shorts, this late at night in the cold, completely soaked, appearing entirely unphased by the increasing raindrops. Diana decided that no matter what was about to happen, she was surely nowhere near the craziest person out tonight.
11:48pm. Diana’s already sprinkled sneakers squeaked down the slippery hill into the D.O.C. parking lot as a strange feeling started to dawn on her, the reason Roomie had been worried. The darker parts of Occum were creepy as all heck this late at night. She decided to start her search near Occum pond’s one and only safety blue light, just in case New Hampshire’s smallest species of frogs decided to sneak up and strangle her.
11:52pm – Diana marveled for a minute at her first full sight of the pond at night. The bumpy ripples of the masses of raindrops tickling the surface tension of the pond were strikingly beautiful, just absolutely serene.
11:55pm – She advanced to the squishy and nebulous border between the floor of disintegrating grasses and leaves and the beginning mud shore of the pond. And the chirps of the frogs were ringing all around her, even louder as she got closer to the pond! After a few steps in and a flash of her flashlight, she swore she saw something jump by the water in front of her. But to no avail, it must have just been a cricket. Although she kept trying to feel a lucky feeling, she started to sense that it was going to be a long night.
11:58pm – Diana began to test whether taking regular photos of things she had her flashlight on, or just using flash photography, would be better. She obtained slightly different colorations of all the little plants and creatures and duckweeds in the following scene, so she decided to use an assortment of photography techniques that night.
12:03am – She advanced West along the North edge of Occum, and reentered near the shore. She began to feel increasingly more eerie about the situation – she felt sketchy creeping around in the rain near a pond in the witching hour. She literally could have been part of a murder mystery novel at this point. Anyway.
12:06am Suddenly, Diana’s flashlight lit up buzzing little movements in the water! They were about 20 little critters, shiny and black, about the size of her pinky nail, flitting randomly around the surface between a few tall water grasses and the shore. Could they be tadpoles?! she briefly wondered. But they couldn’t be, because tadpoles would have a pronounced tail, be bigger and softer looking, and would not flit so fast at the surface. She took a video, hoping someone more experienced could help her identify them later.
[Hear also in this video — the peeping of the distant Spring Peepers!!]
12:07am – Okay, focus Diana!! The rain started to pick up, and she was suddenly horrified by the fact that those could have just been gross fly larvae, and she was revolted with worry that the long grasses and twigs that poked at the ankles of her leggings could infest her with ticks. She was extremely paranoid trudging up and around the moist inclines, but she redirected her focus on the never-ceasing choir of her chirping little frog babes.
12:22am – She delved back into a further shore of brush. After catching her umbrella on tree branches on two occasions and tripping for the first time, Diana began to shiver, as she became chilly, moist, and frustrated. She regretted choosing a tree frog, and began to worry that they could only be found at the very top of tall, majestic trees. This thought led her to gather in the back of her mind that she heard all of the chirping louder when she passed patches of great evergreen vs. shorter bushes. Moral was low.
Will Diana ever find her little Pseudacris crucifer? Stay tuned… TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2!!
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