It’s early May here in Southern Maryland, and the neighborhood drainage and retention pond near my house is hopping! Literally!

Walking by there the other night, I heard a cacophony – at least 4 different types of frogs, all calling out at the top of their lungs, attracting mates and racing against the coming summer that will dry this pond up. I listened for a bit, and realized – I don’t know what I’m hearing. Thus began an investigation and some educated guesses on what frogs live in my neighborhood.

I’ll admit up front – I’m NOT sure I’m correct here! But most of my presumed suspects have a pretty wide range, so they are likely familiar to many of you. Please help me out if you recognize these calls!

Backing up a bit… Here’s what the pond looks like during the daytime:

And here is what it SOUNDS like, shortly after dark:

There’s quite a bit to unpack here, and it takes some concentration, but I’m hearing:
– High “chirping” with long duration
– Irregular “clicking”
– A mid-tone, staccato series of croaks that almost sounds like laughing (seconds 2-5 is a good example)
– A deep, low croak – “Ooo-werp”

The first two clearly dominate the soundscape, and the other two are occasional, underneath the chatter. There may be another set of occasional croaks in there that are distinct, but I can’t quite isolate it well enough to be confident of that.

I’ll tell you what I DON’T hear, and that’s Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer). It’s late for the high-pitched peeping that starts before the trees leaf out and finish by mid-April. In fact, I would guess they’ve already got a head-start on all these other frogs, and that the hundreds of tadpoles, each about the size of the tip of your pinky finger, currently swimming around in the pond behind the dam are likely spring peepers. See the short Youtube clip below for a sample of what that entire pond looks like.

And, just to demonstrate that I’m not hearing these at all, here’s what the peepers sound like (recorded earlier in the season, on April 20, 2018):

So, ruling out the peepers, there are a couple other sounds here that are fairly easy. The lowest “Ooo-werp” is an American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus). These guys are huge, six inches long and over a pound. Their basso-profundo voices match their stature, and I’ve heard and seen them before. I’m pretty confident about this one.

The high pitched, long duration chirps are also easy. These are the soundtrack of mid-spring around here, and audible far from ponds most nights. They’re grey tree frogs. They’re small, and seemingly built to blend in to the rough grey bark of a white oak tree. They stand out really obviously when they cling to a window, however. Pound for pound, these guys are the loudest out there, I think.

The staccato croaks, I believe, are those of Southern Leopard Frogs. I’ve seen a lot of these in the area, and I found some other sound clips online that line up with these nicely. Leopard frogs are fairly big, the size of the palm of your hand, and I think they’re rather handsome frogs, with pointed noses and generally angular features. They range from dark brown to green, or sometimes both, with rounded dark patches on their backs.

The clicking… this was a new one to me. I did some searching on local frog identifications via iNaturalist and investigated a few. Green Frogs tend to have distinctive croaks like a bullfrog, but more frequent. Pickeral Frogs (another I’m unfamiliar with), tend to have a call so low it’s barely audible to humans, or they croak underwater where potential mates can hear, but we (likely) can’t. So it’s probably not either one of those.

But… Northern Cricket Frogs seem to fit the bill! Individually, their croaks can come out as a single “click”, but they can also do this in rapid succession and create the ratchet-y clicks that I was hearing. They’re small, about an inch long, blotchy grey, brown and green in color, with a dark triangular-shaped pattern on their heads. I think this is what I’m hearing – but now I really want to spot one during the day and confirm that they’re around. They’ve definitely been spotted in the area – they’re just new to ME. So I’m up for learning more!

So to sum up – half of these critters I knew both by appearance and call (bullfrogs, grey tree frogs). One I knew by appearance but not call – and now I’ve learned what they sound like (leopard). And one, I didn’t really know anything about, but am fairly confident I’m hearing a LOT of them, so now I need to go find some (cricket).

Thanks to the internet, this kind of investigation is possible. It’s probably easier with frogs than with birds, for example, simply because of the more limited number of likely, local amphibians to choose from. Please correct me if I’m wrong – but I’d love to think that curiosity on an evening walk has led to learning something new about local fauna I’ve just…. overlooked before.

Get Out There and learn something yourself!