We heard the spring peepers last night for the first time this year. A sure sign of spring! The noise seemed to be coming from the woods behind the house, and not from the pond. So perhaps the little frogs are feasting after the winter before hopping down to the marshes, stream, and pond to lay their eggs.
The spring peeper is a small frog commonly found across eastern North America. We haven’t seen many; they are hard to find (the photo is from Flickr). But I love the noise they make at night. The noise is a ‘cheep-cheepy’ sound — a little like a flock of baby chicks only louder (wikipedia has a recording you can listen to). Our neighbours say a few years ago the chorus was so loud at night they had trouble sleeping, but that didn’t happen last year. We had no idea what the noise was last year — we suspected frogs but had to ask around.
Wikipedia says that they are sometimes called ‘pink-winks’ on the South Shore, but everyone I have spoken to calls them peepers.
Matt checked his tweets and he tweeted on April 13, 2011 that the peepers had started. Exactly the same night! I can’t believe it.
witches whiskers 