Spring is in the air. [Update: 3 May 2005: now with pictures!]

I heard them last night, the spring peepers have started peeping. Roll on, springtime!

[Update: 3 May 2005: added photographs below.]

Here at last, the previously promised photographs.

First, the little fella mostly in focus, if a tad over-exposed by the flash. In fact, the exposures leave something to be desired in all these shots, but I'm not sure I can do much better kneeling in a vernal pool in the dark in the rain with a small digicam.

[Photo]
[Flickr]

Spring Peeper

Next we see him belting out his favorite tune (peep, peep, peep, peep, …). This time not in focus at all. I'll try again.

[Photo]
[Flickr]

Peeper Calling

Finally, a shot of his back.

[Photo]
[Flickr]

Peeper's Back

That cross earned him his species name: crucifer. Sometime in the last 20 years, peepers stopped being tree frogs and became chorus frogs (that is, they moved from the genus Hyla to Pseudacris. It's happened to one of my other favorite frogs too, the Pacific Treefrog (now Pseudacris regilla), though I haven't been able to find a concise explanation of why.

Comments:

Do they really sound like this? Wow. Any chance you could take up Peepcasting?

Posted by Danny on 07 Apr 2005 @ 10:23pm UTC #
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