The more and more my camera entices me to get outdoors to photograph for this website the greater my love and appreciation for nature, not just for birds but rather all the creatures in the natural world around us.
Lately, my attention has been getting pulled away from birds, only temporarily mind you as I’m a birdwatcher first and foremost, and pushed in the direction of the unmistakable sounds of frogs calling in many of the wetlands I’ve been frequenting recently, namely the tiny male chorus frogs that have been vocalizing with the warmer than normal spring-like temperatures we’ve been experiencing the past week.
Chorus frogs are commonly found in riparian areas, especially small, temporary bodies of water of either standing or slow-moving water, including road-side borrow pits and shallow, seasonal wetlands that hold melting snow or rainwater for a few weeks or more during the warming spring months.
These small, temporary bodies of water are the preferred places for chorus frogs to lay their eggs, seasonal waterways void of fish that will feed on both the eggs and tadpoles of the chorus frog if given the opportunity.
This is why you’ll hear chorus frogs calling during spring in small pockets of water located in areas otherwise dry during the rest of the year.
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Interestingly enough, only the male chorus frog sings to attract females to their small, seasonal pond to mate with and lay their eggs.
One particular location, for example, I have consistently been hearing male chorus frogs singing the past couple of weeks is the borrow pits on Forest Street, the road that leads to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge auto tour route, where just yesterday, in fact, I heard numerous chorus frogs calling as I drove by on my way back home from a morning of birdwatching.
It’s a spot on the refuge that is normally bone-dry year-round except for a few weeks during spring when water accumulates from the over-saturated soil in wet years.
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I also routinely hear chorus frogs while standing on my front porch in the evening as the roadside farm drainage ditches are filled with recent rainwater, making them an impromptu home for these tiniest of amphibians that measure no more than what literally could be covered by a quarter dollar coin.
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Yes, chorus frogs are indeed that small and are very hard to find and even more so to photograph as they cautiously poke themselves out of the shallow water to sing, stopping each and every time any sign of danger appears including a photographer, namely me, for example, laying in the nearby mud with a camera honed in on their tiny wetland home.
It took me over 5 hours to capture all the images and short video clip for this blog post, including the short photo gallery below, because of their small size and cautious nature but I think even though the images and video aren’t as perfect as I had hoped they still show the rarely seen lives of chorus frogs singing in the spring.
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Chorus Frog Photo Gallery
