April is finally here! It’s been a long time since we had a “real” winter, but this year we finally got one. We had a moment there in January when we were granted a short respite, but then the temperature dipped down again and we were in the firm grip of winter for weeks on end. The final days of winter were highlighted with a series of nor’easters that created conditions that reminded me of the Blizzard of 1978. Young children who experienced all of the snow will probably remember this winter for the rest of their lives.
All good things must come to an end, however, and if you were responsible for clearing the snow out of your driveway, you might not have been all that happy with the third and fourth storms. I know I was a bit grumpy when I had to tackle that mess, and at this point in the season, I think I might start to cry if I saw new snow accumulating on the ground. I’ve had enough snow, and now I long for that first arrival of a warm spring rain.
Rain can fall in any season, but there is something particular about a spring rain that makes it quite magical. For one thing, a rain in early spring can do wonders for erasing any snow that might be lingering in the shady corners of the yard. If you head into the deep forest, or if you live up at higher altitudes, this snow may persist for weeks. I am reminded of a spring trip to the Adirondacks when I discovered ice on a forest pool in May.
This got me to thinking about the connection between rain and frogs. Specifically, I was interested in the singing times of spring peepers, wood frogs and American toads, all of which can be heard in the neighborhood in which I live. It turns out that I have fairly good records for spring peepers, but I have been woefully negligent in recording the other two species.
For this little project, I had to look in my red journals. These are standard diaries that have a page for each day of the year. I started using these diaries back in 2001, but the historian in me didn’t really get into full swing until about 2009. As the years have progressed, I have crammed more and more information into those pages and it is my most fervent hope that I will soon produce a perfect diary that contains everything there was to know about a particular year.
So, I can only go back as far as 2009, but in that year, I recorded the first songs of peepers on March 30. Can you imagine? I live at a higher elevation and as I sit here writing this column, there is a generous blanket of snow covering the landscape around my house. I fear that I will not be hearing the songs of peepers for quite some time to come. However, this only adds to the interest of comparing one year to the next.
In 2010, I heard the first peepers at my house on April 1, and in 2011, I first recorded them on April 7. This seems to be right in the meaty average of first song times and if you live at a lower elevation, you may start to hear peepers at around that time. In 2012, something remarkable happened and the peepers started singing on March 17! I remember the winter of 2012 to 2013 being the winter without white-throated sparrows, but never made the connection with the very early spring in 2012.
In 2013, everything went back to normal and the peepers sang their first songs on April 7. Another “normal” year was 2014, when the peepers sang on April 8. It was in 2015, however, that the peepers made their latest appearance. In that year, I didn’t hear them in my neighborhood until April 13, which seems very late indeed. Then, there was the amazing El Nino year of 2016, when peepers were heard as early as March 10! That was ridiculously early, but then again, it was a remarkable year. Last year I heard my first peepers on April 5, which seems overly optimistic for this year.
At this point, we still haven’t had one of those slow, warm, soaking spring rains. Every morning I go outside and test the air to see if I can detect the scent of thawed, wet earth, but so far I only smell snow. Even now, as I write these words, I hear what sounds like rain dripping off the roof of my house, but I just went outside and there is no rain falling. The water dripping off my roof is coming from melting snow.
So, faithful readers, I am hoping to engage you in the 2018 Peeper Project. Keep your car windows rolled down on the way home from work and listen for their wonderful songs. If you hear them, please send me an email with the location and time of the first songs you hear. If I receive enough data points, I can create a map of songs that may also indicate a time-lapse image of spring melting. That first warm rain has to show up sooner or later, and its arrival will surely help a sleepy world to wake up after a very long winter.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 20 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service and Massachusetts State Parks, and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.