Screaming Wood Frogs

On display at the Crow's Nest.

 In March I was doing some spring cleaning. I came across the written records of the previous frog and toad surveys a sibling and I (plus numerous assistants) completed in the area around Kroschel, Minnesota. I recycled the papers feeling disappointed in the state of Minnesota for not bothering to care about an indicator species like a frog or a toad. Since frogs and toads spend much time in water, they will tell us when pollution gets bad. But Minnesota doesn't care about that I thought to myself. I started exploring available frog and toad surveys in Wisconsin. Three days later I get an email from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources saying they are restarting the frog and toad surveys. I am not narcissistic. The state probably had this in the works and they weren't responding to my computer search of routes in Wisconsin. Anyway, I signed right up and volunteered to test out the new phone app. I downloaded the app on my phone and tried running routes here in Duluth as a test. I got the app to work. I had a map of our route on my phone. Cold weather delayed us by 2 weeks. A  minimum temperature of 42 is necessary to run the first route. I left my house yesterday about 5:30 p.m. The temperature here was 38 and the sky was foggy. I had to drive slower than the speed limit over Thompson hill because fog reduced my visibility. As I approached the Crow's Nest in Mora the temperature was 46 and the western edge of the sky was clear so I could watch the sunset. We set off about 8:30 p.m. We heard spring peepers, Boreal chorus frogs and wood frogs at the first stop. The moon was not visible. The wind was slight. By 10 p.m. we were at our last stop. The wind had picked up and the temperature was below 40. We heard spring peepers and chorus frogs. But the wood frogs were screaming. Wood frogs only call 2 weeks of the year and they were screaming. I have never heard so many wood frogs before. Male wood frogs were screaming about love and lust. My phone app worked but I wasn't sure so it would I also wrote the details on paper. I think next time I can forgo the paper. We also heard snipe, red winged blackbirds and woodcock. At the fourth stop, on the corner by the very tall fence, we saw 12 turkeys roosting in the aspen trees. Turkeys are loud when they fly from one tree to another. We also saw at least 50 thin deer munching on the new green leaves in the fields. We had a nature filled night on our favorite frogging grounds but the best part was the screaming wood frogs.