Pickerel Frogs

By the time you read this, it will be spring, meteorological spring. Spring to me actually begins in February. The days continue to get longer, red maple and elm flowers pop, and frogs, peepers, chorus and pickerel frogs, are all calling. I know there may indeed be some cold days between now and April, but it won’t last long, a few days at most. Winter’s done. If you’ve been down into our wetlands in the last week and a halfRead more

Basking Sites at a Premium, Amphibs Exploit the Season

By the end of the first week of this period the Wetland’s turtles, frogs, and toads were out in numbers. Yellow-bellied Turtles and Painted Turtles were basking on logs, rocks and any other object projecting from the water, with little room to spare. The young Yellow-bellied Turtle in the image at left (perhaps a two-year-old) was lucky enough to find a perch all to itself on a piece of flotsam too small for other, larger turtles to climb onto. TheRead more