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Frog Pond
Public Access: Yes
Description and History:
Ever wonder who's making all that night music in the woods very early in the spring when ice still rings the edges of Frog Pond? It is male wood frogs, recently emerged from beneath the leaf litter of the surrounding woods, calling for mates. In just two to three short weeks the frogs will migrate to the pool, congregate in groups, sing for and secure mates, lay their eggs, and migrate back to the woods. Egg masses, each containing up to 2000 eggs, are usually laid near one another in one or two areas of the pond. The metamorphs, as the miniature wood frogs are called, then leave the pond and disperse into the woods where they feed on insects and bide beneath the leaves. During winter they produce their own antifreeze which keeps the nucleus of each cell from freexing, but allows the rest of the animal to freeze solid.
Soon after the wood frogs arrive, spotted salamanders (one of two species of mole salamanders in Maine) come out from their underground tunnels and head to Frog Pond. The first warm spring rain seems to call them out of their burrows and into the pond. Swarms of salamanders can then be seen swirling about one another in the depths of the pool, their bright yellow spots easily illuminated by flashlight. Like the wood frogs, these salamanders come to the pond to lay their eggs, then quickly return to their terrestrial homes where they spend most of their lives exploring small abandoned mammal burrows in the pursuit of food.
While the wood frog and spotted salamander are certainly the earliest visitors to the pond, a myriad of other singing amphibians use these wetlands for breeding and feeding over the course of the spring, making nighttime visits to the area full of surprises. Some nights the spring peeper calls are nearly deafening, so loud are the sounds coming from these tiny tree frogs. If you're lucky you may see one singing from its perch on a twig, leaf, or blade of grass. After the spring peepers come the American toads and gray tree frogs, whose trilling songs can be easily confused by the casual observer. Gray tree frogs can change color to match the surface they cling to, be it the mottled gray and black lichen or the brilliant green moss that often decorates many tree trunks. Their bright yellow throats extend like balloons while they sing.
Come summer, a few male green frogs and bull frogs establish territories that they defend from other males for several weeks, while trying to attract females with their booming calls heard day and night.
Sally Stockwell