We got there in the late morning and as soon as we stepped out of the car, we knew what we had in store for the day. We heard distant Wood Frogs quacking. And not just a little bit, but a ton of Wood Frogs quacking. Figuring we knew where it was coming from, we hit the trail. Our first animal was a bright Painted Turtle, glimpsed through the bushes. He gave us the side-eye.
We could see other Painters up but it was tough to get decent shots. These will have to suffice. Look at the shell damage on the two-headed one in the first photo!
We made our way over to the vernals and yes, Wood Frogs were all over. I thought I was hot shit when I took this photo of one.
Then my mind wandered...
Andrea found a couple of pairs of Woodies mating on the train tracks! That's hardcore horny!
This pink gal is ready to pop.
I was watching sylvaticus shenanigans while Andrea was seeing a Redback and a shy Garter.
I saw the Garter, too, but she got the shot.
Cold feet, warm heart. There was still plenty of ice here which might explain why the Blanding's hadn't shown up for breakfast.
But there are plenty of Wood Frog eggs. And more coming every moment. Andrea actually saw some coming out.
Sure, we were voyeurs but it was fascinating to watch this and we stayed for quite a while. Eventually, we tore ourselves away and headed back to the trails. Painted Turtles were still seen but, again, were pretty far away for good shots.
These ones look like somebody shuffled them. Hit me, dealer!
Well off the beaten path, we were flipping some logs and saw some Four-toed Salamanders, the first for this place in a couple of years. They are both "as flipped"... the second one fell out of the log.
We weren't sure if any Blanding's had come out of hibernation yet but while we were still off the beaten path, we saw a pretty big shell out there, hidden mostly by tree limbs.
That's a Blanding's, all right, but not the greatest shot of all time. I very slowly snuck to a better position but his head still wasn't showing. Then, from a nearby path, some people were being noisy (as humans usually are) and his noggin came out and I got a few shots.
First of Year Blanding's. Such beautiful animals.
We saw an Iron Maiden tree. Not the band, the torture device.
We'd pretty much finished our hike and seen a target but we just hadn't had enough Wood Frog fun yet, so we headed back to the vernals to enjoy frog sex. I was at one pond watching a floating orgy. At any one time there was was a dozen participants and I'll bet only one was female.
While I was laughing at the pile-up, Andrea was observing a more subdued get together with far more participants. I can count 18 couples in this shot.
Eggs and intertwined frog bodies were everywhere.
This was the largest congregation of frogs we had ever seen. Just an amazing thing to experience. And the noise was wonderfully deafening.
Another visitor to the vernal. I wonder if Ribbon Snakes would eat frog eggs...
Remember our first Ribbon of 2018? It was on December 28th. It feels good to not have to wait that long this year. And our FOY was a big, healthy specimen.
To finish things, I flipped my own Redback, finally getting to see one on this trip.
One last thing worth noting, we flipped a log that had two dead, moldy, adult Spotted Salamanders under it. Our thought is that they woke up during the warm rain a few weeks ago and made their way to the vernals, only to be frozen to death when the temps dropped back to below freezing. The changing weather patterns have wreaked havoc on our projected "Big Night"s and evidently, it has fooled a few salamanders with fatal consequences.
Despite that downer of an ending, we're really grateful to have had such a great day in nature, watching Wood Frogs get a bit nutty and excited. Two more FOYs and we hiked in T-shirts after a while (it hit the mid-60s). I'll take it for April 6th!
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