Western Chorus Frog

This Saturday past, I attended a wonderful workshop on vernal pools. It was held at the Stratford Ecological Center, a jewel of a place not far north of Columbus in Delaware County.

The workshop was organized and sponsored by the Ohio Environmental Council, and featured a cast of fine speakers on a variety of topics.

I arrived well in advance of starting time and the arrival of the other attendees. I wanted to wander in solitude through some of Stratford's 236 acres, and drink in the ambience of the large vernal pools. Just in case you're not up on wetland types, a vernal pool is a depressional wetland that floods only for a relatively brief period. Many vernal pools are small, and in this part of the world they are typically found in forested habitats. Winter snow melt and spring rains fuel them, and vernal pools are brimming with water in March. Come summer's end, they'll start to lose water as rainfall lessens and evaporation takes its toll, along with the increased thirst of surrounding plants wicking up the pool's water. By late summer, vernal pools are often bone dry.

But now, at their peak, vernal pools are packed with an incredible abundance and diversity of fauna. The pool in the photo is an absolute gem of a place. It's loaded with salamanders, frogs, fairy shrimp, caddisflies, Wood Ducks, and scores of other beasts great and small. Small, mostly.

After our classroom lectures had concluded, the group headed afield to learn the secrets of vernal pools up close and personal. Our outdoor lessons were LOUDLY serenaded by legions of tiny frogs; a species that is probably our most conspicuous amphibian right now. Everyone who ventures near vernal pools or other shallow, seasonally flooded wetlands and has their ears open is familiar with the abrasive rasps of Western Chorus Frogs, Pseudacris triseriata, whether they know its name or not.

A little girl in our group spotted this throaty little beauty floating in the pool, and snagged it with a deft lunge. Western Chorus Frogs are only an inch and a quarter or so, but have the vocal pipes of a Pavarotti. Get a whole gang of these guys together and bent on impressing the ladies, and the collective din is nearly overwhelming.

For much of the year, these frogs are quiet and retiring, and not likely to be noticed. Not now. They just can't be missed.

I made this video while standing at the edge of the pool in the photo above. It was around 9 am, and the air temperature was 39 degrees. Later in the day, as things warmed, the frogs became even more intense in their singing.

Western Chorus Frogs are a classic sound of spring throughout Ohio and the Midwest. In order to keep this froggy symphony playing, we have to protect the vernal pools and other ephemeral wetlands that are the frog factories that crank them out.