Monday, February 25, 2008

spring chorus begins



Creeeeet! Creeeeet! Creeeeet! With the recent rain the wetlands in the Tennessee Valley are sodden. Many places that’ll be dry in summer fill up with water at this time of the year and that’s just what the local amphibians need to reproduce. Yesterday, the ditches, seeps and vernal pools along the western portion of the Third Creek Greenway were alive with chorus frogs. They were singing en masse, with great gusto and savoir-faire. These teenie-weenie frogs are as small as the end of your thumb, impossible to see yet impossible not to notice; thousands singing at the same time create quite a ruckus. They're all males hoping to attract the alert ears of the females that are probably not remotely interested this early in the season. But don't tell the guys. Creeeeeeeeeet!

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