7 Wriggles, Buzzes, and Calls

The tallgrass prairie of North American is not flat, at least not uniformly so. Much of it is dissected, as geologists put it, by tributaries of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, making the landscape feel as though it gently rolls. Ever so gently. Neither was it covered at one time entirely by grasses and forbs. There were plenty of trees here as well, although not much more than a fourth of the land was woodland when settlers from the East began to arrive in the early decades of the 1800s. Since then, towns like Carlinville, Illinois, have seen changes in landscape, with large parts of the original prairie tilled for agriculture and others simply mowed on an annual basis. Forests have been cut back and then reclaimed their territories, depending on the ambitions and energies of the landowners into whose holdings they sank their roots.

The grasses and forbs interest us chiefly, though, and particularly the lifeworld without which they could not reproduce. For Carlinville’s ecology depends, quite deeply and intensely, on bees, and on the abiding associations between flowers and bees. And while there are many places like Carlinville, or nearly like it, in the United States, it was here, in the county seat of Macoupin, that science found its local proprietor in Charles Robertson, who made a substantial collection of bees, representing scores of species, and where he made many thousands of observations of flowers and their flying visitors late in the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth, leading to the publication of Flowers and Insects in 1929. In the meanwhile, Robertson went East, briefly, to take courses in entomology at Harvard, then returned home. He taught for a spell (science and Greek; he wrote some of his notes in Latin, as well) at Blackburn College in Carlinville. Students at the college, many of whom no doubt considered Robertson almost laughably stern behind his fashionable mustache, nevertheless valued his depth of commitment and expertise, and they learned field methods by seeking out the sometimes monomaniacal scholar and scientist, out in the fields near town where he could be found making phenological observations and collecting.

Like many biologists of his time, Robertson indulged in experiments of his own devising, transplanting forbs of various species to plots near his home, the better to make daily observations of them. Over the course of his life he banked reams of data, all of which now provide an invaluable baseline for ongoing phenological studies that can be used to pursue new studies in ecological change and climatic change, too. Recent researchers have not found stark changes; many of the bees that Robertson observed and collected can be found in the fields of Carlinville today.

Will this pattern hold? Only a continued effort to make phenological observations will tell. And so it is across the United States, in the few places where there was an entomologist, or some other biologist, having Robertson’s zeal and commitment, and the many places in need of such records.

All animals have phenological significance, in principle at least; most have reproductive cycles and life cycles that are genetically linked to climatic cues of one sort or another. Many of them (marine invertebrates, and vertebrates for that matter) are difficult to observe, though, without special skills and equipment. The insects, especially including bees and their kin, butterflies and moths, and many others, are convenient subjects for phenological observations, records, and reports. They are the stars of this chapter, although other phyla from the animal kingdom, especially frogs and toads from the phylum Chordata, make an appearance.

Many species of fishes are phenologically interesting because of their annual migrations. These, again, make appropriate subjects for the studies of graduate students in biology but aren’t generally suitable for dooryard phenological observation except in extraordinary circumstances. And so this chapter will march all too quickly through the invertebrates and what some call the lower vertebrates, dwelling a bit on insects and pausing for an inadequate look at a small selection of amphibians.

Worms

Annelids, or segmented worms, have life history and, therefore, phenophases. They are difficult to ignore when they turn up after a rain. But in many of the places where they are found, earthworms are introduced species. In the northern United States, the places that were glaciated ten to twenty millennia ago did not have native populations of earthworms until the past couple of hundred years. Ecologists have found that the presence of invasive earthworms tends to decrease overall diversity in a forest unit.

It is worthwhile to observe them when they turn up, or when tilling your garden, and there are dichotomous keys that aid in identifying species of earthworms. But anthropogenic climate change is only one of many anthropogenic change agents that have consequences for the long-term integrity of ecological units. This is a vexed issue in which phenology plays a minor role.

Often, however, “worms” are not true worms but larval stages of insects, such as the “inchworm,” which is a larval geometer moth.

Spiders

As stated earlier, the life history stages of invertebrates are sometimes difficult to observe without unusual investments in time and equipment. A handful of readers may decide to make that investment because they find the larval stages of bivalves or insects fascinating and the as-yet unsettled phenophases of invertebrates hard not to think about. For the rest of us, a single phenophase may be all of most of these creatures we need to deal with. In the summer of the year I wrote this book, I found a tarantula on the walk from my front door to my car, plus more black widow spiders within a few feet of my bed than I cared to think about. Even so, I made notes of their appearance, the significance of which I cannot guess in a single year and may never know.

E. B. White describes the reproductive cycle of ballooning spiders (minus mating) in Charlotte’s Web. Spider eggs also protect young spiders through their larval stage, so spiders emerge from eggs as “spiderlings” that must molt as they grow.

Currently, the common wisdom is that the ranges of spiders are likely to move northward, and upslope, in such a way that, for any place in the United States, you are likely to find more spiders and larger spiders, and they are likely to be faster on their eight legs than any spiders they displace.

Insects

Entomology, a science often found associated with strong agricultural interests, has been a vital field of science in the United States since the middle of the nineteenth century. With climatic changes, much of the accumulated knowledge of insects—how insects interact with agricultural crops and how to prevent agricultural damage by insects—is quickly becoming obsolete.

The passage from egg to adult in insects involves one of two kinds of metamorphosis (“change in form”). The first is simple metamorphosis, which appears to be nothing more than growth, but it isn’t. Instead, insects passing between stages of simple metamorphosis must molt, or shed their exoskeleton, because it doesn’t grow with them. While passing through the stages of simple metamorphosis between egg and adult, the organism is called a nymph. Each stage of a nymph’s life between molts is an instar. Some insects may grow wings after their final molt. Those without wings may simply appear larger but otherwise similar through each instar.

What is complete about complete metamorphosis is the wholesale change in form from the juvenile organism (the larva) to the adult. In complete metamorphosis, the larva may molt and pass through instars, but before becoming an adult, the larva forms a pupa, in which the transformation from, say, a caterpillar (larva) to an adult (butterfly) takes place.

The common names for most insects usually refer to multiple species and other taxonomic levels. “Mayfly,” for instance, is a common name for thousands of species that have similar appearances and life histories. How particular you wish to become in naming insects depends on your reasons for observing them. The USA-NPN currently accepts reports for more than fifty insects; identifications are required for some of them at the species level, while for others (bumblebees are Bombus spp.) at the level of genus is fine. Apart from citizen science, it may still be worth the time to learn to distinguish honeybees (Apis mellifora) from species of stingless bees.

The Fishers’ Flies. When fishing for trout in the Sierra in my early youth, before the introduction of catch-and-release fishing, we used salmon eggs as bait. It wasn’t sporting. Then again, we carried Sierra Club cups and other such vessels that we dipped into Sierra streams without filtering. So, this was quite a while ago. I always hoped one day to do penitence for this early unsportsmanlike fishing and learn to fish with hand-tied flies of my own making. Perhaps that day will come. If it does, I will take my knowledge of phenology with me. Fly-fishing is an attempt, by anglers, to mimic the hatches of aquatic insects using imposters made of feathers and thread tied to hooks. Izaak Walton discussed the ruse in The Compleat Angler in 1653.

Mayflies were described by Aristotle and mentioned in Izaak Walton. And in Alberta, Canada, Bob Scammel worked out relationships between flowering of plants and hatches of mayflies and other insects that fly fishers imitate, publishing his system in The Phenological Fly.

Mayflies, as a group, actually encompass a few thousand separate species under a single common name. Mayflies spend most of their lives as nymphs, but they have an unusual developmental stage that separates them from other insects. Before the final stage of metamorphosis, mayflies pass through a subimago stage (fly fishers call these duns), in which they are not yet capable of reproduction but no longer nymphs. In this stage, they eat, then pass through one final stage a metamorphosis where they emerge as adults, when mayflies no longer eat. Their life is devoted to reproduction, in a sort of flight dance. After mating, the females deposit eggs in a stream or pond and both adults die. After emerging from eggs, nymphs pass through one or more dozen instars before reaching the subimago stage. Nymphs that are found and counted in water, whether a stream or a pond, are used as an indication of water quality. Greater numbers point to higher water quality.

During the final two stages, especially the last, you might witness what fly fishers and hikers commonly called a “hatch,” even though it is actually a metaphoric change; each mayfly hatched from an egg and passed through the long stages of metamorphosis long before the event you witness. You are likely never to forget your first experience of a mayfly hatch. Mine occurred while I was tracing the path of the Cuyahoga River by foot, canoe, and car from its source (near Chardon, Ohio) to its mouth in Cleveland, years before Cuyahoga Valley National Park protected the river’s flanks between Akron and Cleveland. The hatch was north of Kent, Ohio. The air swarmed with mayflies; the road was awash in dead adults (as was the brim of my hat).

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service currently collaborates with the USA-NPN to gather citizen science observations of mayfly hatches along the Mississippi River on a stretch through Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

Like the mayfly, caddis flies actually encompass thousands of species of insects, genetically close and with similar behaviors and appearances. In Minnesota alone, one dissertation writer counted 284 species (from more than three hundred thousand specimens). Unlike mayflies, though, caddis flies go through a complete metamorphosis. Distantly related to moths, these insects create underwater pupae spun from silken filaments. Like mayflies, however, many species of caddis fly emerge at one time, in a hatch, as a “strategy” (although the caddis flies don’t sit around a table discussing the best way to confound the rest of nature). Also, like the nymphs of the mayfly, caddis fly nymphs in fresh water indicate good water quality. At any given time, phenology networks, sometimes organized at the state level, welcome observations of caddis flies.

The stone fly is yet another species with an aquatic life cycle. And once again, “stone fly” actually refers to a taxonomic order, numbering thousands of species. As with the other fishers’ flies, stone fly nymphs indicate high water quality.

Developing an interest in the phenologies of mayflies, caddis flies, and stone flies can be joined to the pleasures of a sport with history, whether you undertake both interests on your own or join forces with a companion in a form of sport and science mutualism.

Cicadas. If you live in a place where cicadas mate, you know it, may have mentioned it to friends and relatives, and might even have reported observations on social media. The sounds of the males calling to females can be deafening and persistent over weeks. The insects also have a social media following of their own; one website is “dedicated to cicadas, the most amazing insects in the world.” Although not universally beloved, cicadas do arouse the sympathies and even love of some who admire them for, among other reasons, their fondness for prime numbers, since they emerge as adults and reproduce over periods of one, two, five, thirteen, and seventeen years.

The common term, “cicada,” actually refers to many hundreds of species of these insects. Typically, the females lay eggs in a portion of tree bark, usually on small branches, which die. Entomologists call this flagging, and it is an observable phenophase, worth reporting when seen and confirmed. Eggs hatch in a bit more than a month to three months. The larvae then fall to the ground and burrow into the soil where they feed on roots and pass through molts before emerging as adults, in late spring through summer. Cicadas may emerge in batches. Predation by birds and other animals during the first hatch may be severe, but the din through a period of weeks is testimony to the fact that breeding adults have survived and will produce a new generation.

Beetles are abundant in most of the world’s ecosystems, numbering over a third of the million known species. Across the world, beetles are considered pests, although some species, such as the ladybug, are beneficial. Indeed, many beetles are pollinators. Others are primarily herbivores, though, and some consume important agricultural crops. Beetles develop through a complete metamorphosis. It is worthwhile to make observations of developmental stages of beetles when you encounter them.

One well-known example of a set of feedbacks is the mountain pine beetle and its relation to drought. In the West, drought conditions have led to damage to pines from beetles. When there is more water, pines will respond to bark beetle damage by enclosing the beetles in sap. But in conditions of drought, there is not enough sap—the pines are less well defended—leading to deaths among the pines. The resulting deforestation reduces the totality of forested land, and its value as a carbon sink, thereby increasing warming. Whether warming itself is the cause of drought conditions is an open question, but it is more likely to lead to drought than not.

Bees and Stinging Insects. This group of insects includes some that are crucial for horticulturalists and gardeners because of their role as pollinators, as well as some that are considered pests, such as paper wasps. Various groups, often connected to agricultural programs in colleges and universities, have begun or are continuing phenological networks to monitor honeybees, and NASA also has such a program. Even so, notes on honeybees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, and even the first appearances of wasps and hornets should go into your phenological journal, if you keep one, along with dates and notes about weather conditions.

One wasp that I have been amazed to see is the so-called tarantula hawk (Pepsis spp.), a frightening critter with red wings that paralyzes tarantulas (but does not kill them) and lays its eggs in the spider’s abdomen. Although common in the deserts of Arizona and California, I have seen them in coastal suburbs north of San Diego. The sting from a tarantula hawk is not likely to be fatal, but is said to be extraordinarily painful.

Bees in your dooryard, because of their importance as pollinators and as a source of food for a variety of animals, should always get attention. Bees are members of the taxonomic family Apidae, which includes honeybees, bumblebees, carpenter bees, and stingless bees. Reports of observations to phenological networks are best when you are able to distinguish males from females of the various species. In honeybees, this takes practice distinguishing the slightly larger males from females. In carpenter bees, males and females have different coloration.

Honeybees (Apis mellifera), because of their economic importance (both as honey producers and as plant pollinators), are carefully monitored by beekeepers. Even so, it’s hard to avoid mentioning them in phenological journals.

Bumblebees are a collection of species, all with large bodies that appear to be fuzzy in yellow and black. The insect has an interesting life history and set of phenophases, beginning with a queen who hibernates through the winter and in spring creates a nest of honey and pollen, sometimes in an existing bird’s nest. Here, the queen lays eggs, which she broods until they hatch. The queen feeds the emerged larvae, which enter a pupal stage and emerge as adults. The queen continues to reproduce through the summer, enlarging the colony as she does so. In time, one of her progeny will leave the colony as a queen, then mate and begin the cycle again to replace the colony, all of whose members die, including the original queen. Each of these stages, as well as the identified flowers with which bumblebees associate, are worth noting and reporting.

Unlike bumblebee queens, the queens of eastern carpenter bees (Xylocopa virginica) survive to live for two years. Eastern carpenter bees do not eat wood, but make use of cavities in trees and wooden structures to create their nests. Like western, or valley, carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta), eastern carpenter bees often seem disoriented, flying in a confusing way that sometimes seems threatening but is not. The eastern bees have an appearance similar to bumblebees. The males of the western bees have a similar appearance, but the females are entirely black. Both bees are pollinators, and reports should include identifications of plants where they are gathering pollen.

Green sweat bees (Agapostemon texanus) range throughout the contiguous United States. They are stingless bees. Males have yellow and black abdomens. These are the bees that may gather near picnicking humans, congregating near sources of water, especially sweetened waters such as lemonade and iced tea.

Mosquitoes. The possibility that species’ ranges may expand or shift northward has a way of sounding good in the abstract but is less pleasant to contemplate when the species are mosquitoes, especially those that provide a vector for West Nile virus, dengue fever, malaria, and the zika virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (the CDC), which monitors the incidence of these infections, has seen a rise in cases of West Nile virus and dengue fever in recent years. While mosquitoes have been “managed” in parts of the United States for decades, there is rarely agreement about the safety and effectiveness of management techniques and policies. Thus, range expansions and shifts are certain to introduce new management methods, such as trucks equipped with foggers daily patrolling residential neighborhoods, to places that have had little use for or experience with them in the past.

Of course, expansions and shifts in the ranges for mosquitoes do provide new niches for the predators that make use of them for food, such as fishes, frogs, birds, and bats.

As with so many other insects, what we call “mosquitoes” are actually many species. Most develop through a complete metamorphosis, from egg to larva to pupa to adult. While not all females place their eggs in water, most species depend on water as habitat for larva.

The USA-NPN does not presently make requests for reports of mosquitoes.

Moths and butterflies. The novelist Vladimir Nabokov was a curator of butterflies at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard between 1941 and 1948. While there, he developed a systematic understanding of an order of butterflies—the “blues.” To be a successful collector, Nabokov had to know the phenologies of butterflies, even if phenology was not his central concern. In one passage of his autobiography, Speak, Memory, Nabokov describes the feelings of ecstasy he experienced on a collecting trip to Colorado, in a “paradise of lupines, columbines, and penstemons.”

“I confess I do not believe in time,” Nabokov wrote, speaking as a collector and a systematic lepidopterist, in an unconscious (one imagines) counterpoint to Thoreau’s “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”

But in spite of Nabokov’s demurral, he was an accomplished phenologist, attuned to time and the phenophases of butterflies and their surroundings, even coining the term “nymphet” in his best known novel, Lolita, from the term for a butterfly life stage.

The life cycles of butterflies begin with eggs, which may be found on the leaves of plants that were selected to provide food for hatched larvae in due course. Inside the egg, the embryo develops to a larval stage, which, in butterflies, is called a caterpillar. Initially, the caterpillars are very small, but they are indefatigable consumers and grow quickly, molting several times as they do so. At the end of the larval stage, the caterpillar forms a pupa or chrysalis. Inside the pupa, the organism goes through metamorphosis, emerging at the end of the process as a butterfly—folded up, at first, but in a few minutes or hours, a complete, and what we think of when we think of an adult, butterfly.

Studies of more than fifty species of butterfly in the Northern Hemisphere show that their adjustment to anthropogenic climate change fits the general prediction. Butterflies are generally migrating and establish ranges north of their former ranges and are moving upslope.

All butterflies are members of the order Lepidoptera. To tell them apart, use a field guide or a dichotomous key. Or study entomology and become a lepidopterist. There are over a hundred thousand species of moths and butterflies worldwide, thousands of which live in or pass through the United States each year. Some are found in some places, or are more easily identified, in their larval stage (as “worms” and caterpillars) while others appear as winged adults. The USA-NPN currently requests reports for more than thirty species of moth and butterfly.

Moths range, in the minds of humans, from pest to pleasure to economic producer. Some moths eat wool sweaters. Others spin silk. Gypsy moths have been responsible for the decline of the boreal forests of the American Northeast and attempts to manage them have led to a decline in luna moths.

In the cases of both moths and butterflies, there are clear phenophases, opportunities for observations, and consequences of climatic changes. The following are a sample of species that can be observed, either as caterpillars or as adults, or both.

The luna moth is large (with a wing span of three to four inches), green, and rather unmistakable in appearance. Its range is to the east of the hundredth meridian, primarily in places where there are substantial stands of deciduous trees and where leaves are not raked and destroyed, a process that also disturbs cocoons. Caterpillars are green, but have brown heads. Just before they enter the pupal stage, they become all brown. Luna moths reproduce once per year, in late spring, in the northern portion of their range; twice to the south of that; and three times per year in southern states. Most observations of luna moths are worth noting and reporting.

The robin of butterflies, the cabbage white (Pieris rapae), is a reliable harbinger of spring. They range throughout the contiguous United States and Canada. Perhaps the perfect butterfly to draw with only pencil and white paper, they have dark spots and tips on each wing, although the exact coloring varies. Their wingspans are slightly less than two inches. The caterpillars are often found on the leaves of garden vegetables, such as cabbage and broccoli. Cabbage whites are an introduced species in the United States. Reports should mention plants with which cabbage whites are associated.

Sooty wings (Pholisora catullus) are beautiful, darkly colored butterflies with tiny white spots toward the edges of their wings. They are a petite butterfly, not the smallest but diminutive, with a wing span of less than one and a half inches. Sooty wings prefer edge landscapes and meadows. They spend their winters as fat caterpillars, generally enter their pupal stage in midspring, and emerge as adults in late spring. If you observe one or more, make a note of the forbs with which they are associated.

The eastern tent caterpillar moth (Malacosoma americanum) has a large caterpillar, often two inches in length and often found in orchards and edge environments in the Eastern states. The pupal stage is easily observed, as eastern tent caterpillars act as a group to create a fairly large cocoon in the forks of tree branches, leaving them to feed. The caterpillars can be quite destructive in orchards.

The western pygmy-blue (Brephidium exilis) is a tiny butterfly, with a wingspan of less than an inch and velvety-looking wings that are blue, copper-brown, and yellow at the edges. Found year round in Western deserts, the insects are summer and fall residents in nondesert biomes in Western states. Reports should include identifications of plants with which they associate.

The rosy maple moth (Dryocampa rubicunda) displays neon colors: pink or magenta and yellow to pale green. These moths range throughout the Eastern states and are generally associated with species of maple. If you see one, the excitement will be enough to encourage you to note it or report.

Ants may seem to be everywhere, always. They aren’t. They pass through phenophases, as do other insects. But their often well-ordered activity makes them fascinating to observe, as Edward O. Wilson, of Harvard University, discovered early in his life. Together with Bert Hölldobler, Wilson spun a systematic work titled The Ants, which is worth finding at a library to peruse for a sense of the diversity of these seemingly ubiquitous insects.

Red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) are red ants with a range in the Southwestern states. They are sometimes confused with fire ants. Red harvester ants are important in their habitats for their efforts in dispersing the seeds of plants, on which they feed but which they also overharvest. The ants are a food source for horned lizards.

Winnow ants (Aphaenogaster rudis) are another seed disperser that range through much of the Eastern United States. These ants, along with red harvester ants, aren’t mere consumers of seeds but are engaged with what ecologists call mutualism with the plants on whose seeds they dine, contributing to the reproductive patterns of the plant species. There is some concern among botanists and myrmecologists (ant experts) alike that the phenophases of winnow ants and those of the seed producers may become mismatched. Phenological studies of these interactions are just beginning.

These and other ant species are likely to attract more phenological interest in coming years.

Collecting. Amateur naturalists, including Charles Darwin, have enthusiastically collected insects for at least two centuries and continue to do so, although there are a few restrictions governing collecting on public lands and collection of threatened and endangered species. For many environmentalists, the practice seems barbaric, and the logic required to enjoy (with respect to insects) what you would otherwise abhor (in the case of, say, birds) is difficult for some to follow.

It is likely that a period of collecting will hasten the journey of any citizen entomologist ascending the steep learning curve as they endeavor to learn their insects.

The equipment for collecting insects has changed little over the decades—the basics are a means for capturing insects (a net, a trap, or one’s hands), a technique for killing insects without destroying them (usually, a “killing jar” equipped with cotton balls soaked in poison), one or more books for identifying insects, and some pins, labels, and a board for organizing and displaying them. Before beginning a collection, be sure to research current restrictions on public lands. And remember that any specimen must be associated with metadata—date and place of collection—to have value.

Frogs and Toads

With frogs and toads, we leave invertebrates behind and pass into the vertebrates. Frogs and toads are amphibians in the order Anura. Phenologically, they are very sensitive to environmental cues such as water and temperature. They are also sensitive to other environmental inputs. Their breeding period is about four to eight weeks in length.

Phenological observations of anurans are made by learning their calls, learning to distinguish between them, and then listening for their calls during breeding seasons, which may number more than one per year, depending on the species. If you’ve never done it, the idea of learning to distinguish species by their calls may seem daunting, but human ears and memories are more than adequate for the task. It may be somewhat more difficult to separate calls if you hear multiple calls at the same time, a common occurrence. Many frogs and toads are also seen, and not just heard, as adults and as tadpoles. It is possible as well to observe the eggs of many species in ponds and swamps.

Frogs begin their lives as eggs, wrapped together in gelatinous goo. Once fertilized, the embryos develop through a larval stage, sometimes with some parental care, until they emerge either as tadpoles or, after metamorphosis within the egg (in a few species), as fully formed frogs. Frogs that undergo metamorphosis outside the egg have gills and the characteristic tadpole tail at first. In time they develop forelimbs and lungs. Metamorphosis happens quite quickly as they grow to become fully formed frogs.

The spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) practically calls out “phenology!” in early spring. Well, not really. But the call is distinctive, and generally welcome at the end of winter. A single species with three subspecies, peepers are found throughout the contiguous states east of the Mississippi River and in Texas. As with other frogs, the call is the thing, especially when heard in a chorus. Peepers are found where there are wetlands of any size and begin to call shortly after the last ice of winter has melted. Listen and report the first calls of the year.

American spadefoot toads are a family of toads that prefer dryer landscapes. Their ranges extend throughout the contiguous states, except in the Great Lakes area, parts of the West Coast that see significant annual precipitation, and Louisiana. They are endangered on a state-by-state basis, such as in Pennsylvania. Eastern spadefoots begin calling in middle to late winter. Even though they prefer dry landscape, they call and reproduce at times of significant moisture (rain or runoff). The call of the eastern toads sounds a bit like “Bow. Wow.”

American bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbeianus) range throughout much of the United States, except for the Rocky Mountains, the Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin, and the northernmost plains states. Within that range, they are found wherever there is still, shallow water. Their calls sound, to my ears, like narrow venetian blinds in a breeze. Bullfrogs call in middle spring.

The name leopard frog actually connotes more than a dozen species of the genera Lithobates and Rana. The Atlantic coast leopard frog (Rana kauffeldi), for instance, is found in wetlands in the New Jersey interior and in Long Island but seems to have expanded its range around Chesapeake Bay and into the Virginia tidewater. All leopard frogs have distinctive spotted coloration (hence the “leopard”). Calls include a fast staccato. The Atlantic coast leopard frog begins to call sometime in middle to late winter.

Boreal chorus frogs (Pseudacris maculata) are found chiefly in the northern Great Plains states. They have brown and green alternating stripes. Frogs begin to call in very late winter into early spring. The frogs form a chorus that sounds rather like spring peepers.