A Good Weekend for Night Hikes

Last weekend was a good one at Ashland, with the frogs out in force and a couple of good groups out for hikes.

4 April

Friday night we had a small group of cub scouts to take around, and with the spring peepers calling constantly these days (they had begun sporadically when I arrived in late afternoon), we headed straight for the marsh to start the night hike. As we have been doing lately, we spent a fair amount of time in the marsh, and things were ever so slightly different than the last night I’d been through, which also seems to happen consistently. The peepers overwhelmingly command attention in the night marsh, and their chorus really is impressive, even though we never did manage to see any, despite hearing that there had to be some just a few feet off the boardwalk. But we shared the wood frog eggs and the newts that gathered near them to eat, explaining the ecological connection that the eggs provide food for the newts.

Both Friday and Saturday night, a couple of kids and parents expressed surprise that the parent frogs don’t defend the eggs, which surprised me, since I take it for granted - they just lay tons of eggs and enough young survive. While those joining us learned amphibians follow a very different reproductive strategy than mammals, it was a bit revelatory for me too, in that it showed a common blind spot, people assuming other animals are like them in basic and important ways. It shows a need to develop ecological knowledge among more people, of course, but I think it’s more interesting that it reveals a certain empathy people have for other animals. They were honestly surprised, and some a bit upset or disappointed, that frogs don’t care for their young. It shows an assumption of kinship they were making with the frogs, which is remarkable, when you think about it, because frogs are wildly different than people.

After the wood frog eggs we started to make our way out of the marsh, slowly, still hoping to catch sight of a peeper. While we did not manage that, we did hear as we left the trill of an Eastern American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus), which took all of us aback. (I didn’t manage to study my frog calls until Saturday, so I wasn’t certain what it was at the time.) Toad was my guess, but I was frankly surprised at the length of time the trill went on, making me wonder if it might not be another kind of animal entirely. Whereas most of the frogs we’re likely to find at Ashland perform short calls in series, the trill just goes on and on. It was fun to hear something new, and another sign that the weather is warming and spring progressing. Since the wood frogs came out a couple of weeks ago, I have been thinking of time at Ashland in terms of which frogs are out, and toads are the third species to emerge.

These toads are adaptable and can survive in proximity with humans, making them a (relatively) commonly seen nocturnal animal. They need a semi-permanent body of water in the area for breeding but are otherwise found across most of the continent, with the exception of the southernmost states. They have shorter hind legs than frogs and warts on their skin, but their coloring can vary considerably.

5 April

We did not hear a toad Saturday night, but it was still a very successful hike. It was a larger group and we had an additional teacher naturalist, so we split the group into three. We each headed in a slightly different direction, and as a result we were able to take smaller groups out than is often the case. I had seven girl scouts and three of their mothers, and they were a wonderfully quiet group while we were hiking. We heard and talked about the peepers right away, and stopped once we were a bit away from the building to “turn on our night vision,” a trick that worked with this group, who were probably first- and second-graders. Sometimes just getting kids (and adults!) comfortable with walking in the dark feels like a success, showing them that they can trust their eyes and do okay without street lights and pavement.

As we headed down into the woods by the Red Clay Creek, everyone was quiet, and we managed to hear something move to our left, between us and the creek. I turned my flashlight on in the direction of the sound, not expecting much, but we saw two eyes shining back at us, a white-tailed deer looking straight at us. Three deer bounded away across the trail a bit further ahead, and I felt gratitude for the luck - the kids were excited and anything more on this hike would feel like a bonus.

We had one more exciting find when we took the time at the edge of the marsh to crouch down and stare at some near shore grasses where there just had to be spring peepers singing. We had shown the group a pair of peepers that had been caught for the Frog Festival that morning, partially so they would know what the animals making the noise looked like, and partially because we’ve all realized how hard it is to see them actually in the marsh. But with the small group, perhaps inclined to believe it worth waiting from our experience with the deer, we were able to spend enough time looking at the grasses to finally see one of the frogs calling, mostly just the pulsing of its vocal sac, but that counts as a win given how incredibly small and well-camouflaged they are.

Spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) are related to tree frogs, in the family Hylidae, although they are actually thought to prefer the ground and leaf litter. Still, they have noticeable discs on their toes, reminiscent of tree frogs. Their scientific name alludes to the cross that can be seen on their backs. Even the biggest spring peepers don’t quite grow to an inch long and weigh just five grams. They eat small insects, with younger peepers feeding primarily in the early morning and late afternoon while adults feed mostly in late afternoon and early evening.