Frogs

Our vernal pond, March 16th 2010

Sunny today; high's in the low 50's.

Heard the first frogs of Spring in our vernal pond today.  I think in other years we may have heard them before this -- more like the last week in March.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Or maybe the fact that we got snow on Friday -- April 1st -- slowed them down.

We always hear the quackers first -- which I believe are wood frogs.  Then a few days or maybe a week later the peepers start up.   When we first moved into the house I couldn't figure out what was making the quacking sound.  First afternoon I heard them, I thought it was a madly tuned motorbike at a neighbor's house  (really!).

We've been seeing ripples in the vernal pond in recent days, and yesterday I happened to be standing at the window when I saw something moving right at the edge of the pond that is nearest our house.   Through the binos I could clearly see a Mr. and Mrs Mallard.  We had a Mallard pair last year too.  Wonder if we will get ducklings in our pond.

Quite a busy nature day today.  Out the kitchen window, we saw a lovely, likely-juvenile red-tailed hawk.  It sat for quite a while on tree branch, very still, and then swooped to the ground where it clearly caught something -- a mouse?  a chipmonk?  Couldn't tell.  Off it flew, lunch in mouth!

We visited the heron rookery today -- first time this year.  A few herons were up on the nest.  I wonder if they have started to lay eggs yet?  We are planning to go each week from now on.  We'll see if we manage to keep up with that.