This post is contributed by Coastal Rivers Trustee Barnaby Porter from his archive. Read the previous post here.
There’s no more cheering sound than that of spring peepers. Once again, I am cheered in these first few days of April. Lovers of damp woods close by wetlands and marshes, these tiny, tan-colored frogs with their dark brown crosses on their backs (crucifer means cross-bearer) sing out with such a fervor that, in the vicinity of hundreds or thousands, close up, it can be ear-splitting. But from a distance, that joyous sound has a remarkable similarity to sleigh bells.
Around the last fringes of the eroded and dimpled remains of winter’s ice, there is the encouraging appearance of dark, tea brown water in our boggy marsh. Cranberries, old cattails and sphagnum – they are the rich surround from which our cheerful singers have emerged, all full of themselves for the passionate days ahead.
I’ve been hearing geese and red-wings and other newly-arrived birds for some time now, but none of them is so convincing of spring as the peepers; the peepers ARE spring. With them, we have made it. What is left of the woodpile will surely last until warm-weather; that is now a certainty, and I can confidently anticipate an explosion of green things from the earth. On my rounds, checking for daffodils pushing through soggy leaves by a stone wall, I found a spotted salamander under a rotted log. Each sign earns my appreciative moment of regard.
I especially like the way the peepers’ chorus graces the countryside with “islands” of ethereal cheer while driving along the back roads. Evenings are best, when all else is quiet. I am their most receptive and eager audience; I have waited a year to hear them again.
Peepers bring on associations from my past, too. The beginning of fishing season started with their nightly concerts and saw me on hands and knees on the front lawn with a flashlight and coffee can, catching nightcrawlers. Those were the days of new excitement, tinged with pale green pastures and fantasies of uncaught trout waiting in fresh-running brooks. It was a happy time, because one day each spring I was allowed to play hooky from school to go trout fishing.
Lije and I will put in the canoe sometime soon to go peeper hunting. It’s an amusing venture; those tiny frogs can be singing all around us, but they are very difficult to spot, blending perfectly with the still brown vegetation of last year. We usually end up looking over the side for signs of life, newts and water beetles, crawling on the bottom of the marsh. And we’ll whisper as we watch the muskrat on its dusk outing, trailing between hummocks of old cattails.
I have a feeling we’ll soon have several jars of frogs’ eggs along with writhing blobs of pond muck on the kitchen table for observation. It’s that kind of spring this year. The peepers are a little early. There’s a fever in the air.
Video: Turn the volume up and press play to hear an evening chorus of spring peepers.
Artist and author Barnaby Porter has had a varied career in marine research, aquaculture, and woodworking, among others. Most recently he partnered with his wife Susan as co-owners of the Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe in downtown Damariscotta. On October 7, 2021, Barnaby completed his tenure on Coastal Rivers’ Board of Trustees after six years of service.
