Frog and Toad Hunt #1

Last night a sibling, offspring #2 and I went on our first of three frog and toad hunts. We're surveying a frog and toad route for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. After much studying and successfully completing the frog and toad identification quiz we now have blood stained ear canals and hear frogs 24/7 (I mean we now could proceed with the survey). Our route is near Kroshel (I never heard of it before either) which is north of Mora and east of Sandstone and Hinckley. We scouted out our route in daylight first. We tried to have a bite to eat in Sandstone but ended up at Tobies in Hinckley because we got lost. Tobies was good though. I had a bowl of oatmeal. Now, is that so strange? I took some heat for ordering oatmeal. Some people think oatmeal is inappropriate for a long trip to a restaurant you seldom frequent. Oatmeal, raisins and brown sugar - that really hit the spot. Then we surveyed our area. The sky was drizzling - good weather for hunting frogs and toads. Unlike the owl survey, we heard what we sought to hear. We heard a full chorus of spring peepers (see photo) at every stop. The peeper calls were overlapping, continuous and constant. Some would say deafening. At stop 2,5, 7 and 10 we heard several chorus frogs (sound like a finger rubbing the stiff teeth on a comb) calling and one American toad. We heard more American toads at stop 4 and 8. And at stop 7 we also were thrilled to hear a wood frog calling. Wood frogs make a sound like "Keck a heck." Or maybe they were saying Kennebec because that is the county we were in. Wood frogs call only 2 weeks a year. Peepers call for months. I thought we were very lucky to hear a wood frog calling. We will do this survey again in May and in June. I really hope we get to hear a green frog calling. Green frogs sound like the pluck of a loose banjo string-sort of like the sound my stomach was making last night - must have been the oatmeal. Completing the survey was lots of fun. We were way out in the country, on dirt roads parked by culverts and ponds and sloughs, purposefully listening to the sounds in the dark.