I am now convinced that spring has arrived.
About a week ago, the peepers started. One night there were none. The next night, you could hardly carry on a conversation outside. Thousands of them were screaming.
Thankfully, frogs have to do this screaming thing. If they ever start to use smart phones, it would be a pretty quiet world. Thousands of frogs would be sitting around in swamps, swiping left and right to find their potential mates. Instead, they continue to yell for them. Just as they have for many years.
Same with the wood frogs. They appear fairly soon after the peepers. Not everyone hears them. I’m lucky enough to be around an area that has wood frogs.
For quite a while, I thought they were ducks. They sound a bit like a duck. I would hear them and try to sneak up on them to find out where the ducks were hiding. But they would go silent whenever I was around.
I finally managed to stay still enough that they started croaking again, but I still couldn’t see any ducks. Mostly that was because they aren’t ducks. They are frogs. And not overly large frogs. So if you’re looking for a duck, you might not spot the frog.
Eventually, I figured it out. Now that I know they are frogs, they really don’t sound that much like ducks. In some ways, they almost sound like they are laughing. My wife likes to call them chucklers. And they may have been laughing, while I was stumbling around a swamp looking for the ducks that didn’t exist. Most frogs would probably find that amusing.
But I heard one over the weekend. I know there will soon be more. First the peepers. Now the wood frogs. And for some reason I want a cheeseburger. And that golf course in Augusta has a ton of cardinals. My back yard has a few, too.
The spring chorus has begun.
