Last week I woke up in the middle of the night to an unexpected sound outside. Was that...? No it couldn't be...it's too early. It's not warm enough out yet... But sure enough, it was a chorus of
spring peepers in the night. It does seem rather early for them to be out - we did have a frost just the night before, but they were not yet out in full force. Their peeping was intermittent, and I had to listen for awhile to be sure I heard them. But it was definitely spring peepers. I have been hearing them every night since, more and more of them.
Crocus, which can bloom in the snow, Bright yellow forsythia and spring peepers are all the signs that spring has arrived even if everything else has not yet sprung.
When I was a kid, our next-door neighbors, the Andersons had a marshy side yard with two huge weeping willows. The yard was about a half an acre and that was where the spring peepers lived. The whole neighborhood played at their house at night until it was time to go home. (Our yard was the daytime yard - we had an acre and it was the pick-up baseball and football yard.) Andersons had woods, a stream, the marshy side yard, gardens, an apple tree for climbing and a playhouse - plus a playroom in the house. Their yard wasn't good for baseball or football - too many obstacles.
In the spring, we would all go out with flashlights and catch the little frogs. They are about the size of a quarter. We would see how many we could catch before curfew and then we let them go when it was time to go home. One night we caught over a hundred of them.
Their peeps are so loud when you're standing next to them. (Probably why I could hear them through my closed windows at night.)
They start peeping at dusk and they really get going when it's full dark. I have seen pictures of some peepers that are darker or more reddish than the ones I remember. The ones we had in upstate New York were tan like toads with a dark "X" in their backs. I don't know what the spring peepers in Virginia look like, but they sound exactly like their New york cousins.
When you hear them peeping, you know that spring is well on its way. The other signs are sure to follow, and not far behind.
Enjoy them while you can - they only peep in the spring and early summer.
