Frog and Toad at the Pond
Phenology – “a branch of science concerned with the relationship between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as the migration of birds or the flowering and fruiting of plants).”
Frog Waits
Frog sits at the edge of the pond, his legs splayed out to either side, only his head out of the water. Motionless and silent for minutes at a time, looking straight at the shore, he waits patiently – for what? Lunch? Probably not, as he had feasted the last several days on black flies, mayflies and other insects suddenly so numerous at the edge of the pond.
Perhaps he’s thinking of the day last year when one of the little yellow snails slithered right up his belly, nearly to his mouth. Fortunately for the snail, Frog had never developed a taste for food that requires a can opener.
More likely, he’s wondering what’s delaying his long-time friend Toad, who joins him every year when Toad and his relatives came to the pond for what they call their “family reunion.” Toad always was one for the first to make it to the pond, because he so much wanted to see his friend Frog.
After a while, Frog gives his special call: instead of the single “plonk” that he and the other green frogs normally make, Frog goes “plonk – plonk - - - PLONK.” If Toad were anywhere nearby, he would recognize the call and head directly toward Frog.
Frog ignores the mayfly nymph that crawled up beside him, gives another of his special calls, and continues to wait.
1 Photos and text by Carl D. Martland, founding member of ACT, long-time resident of Sugar Hill, and author of Sugar Hill Days: What’s Happening in the Fields, Wetlands, and Forests of a Small New Hampshire Town on the Western Edge of the White Mountain. Quotations from his book and his journals indicate the dates of and the situations depicted in the photos.
June 16, 2018. Green frog with mayfly nymph at the edge of the pond.
Toad Hears the Call
It was just a week or two ago that Toad had been rudely awakened from his long winter slumber by something totally unexpected and unknown. Was it an earthquake? Was it the end of the world? Why was the ground shaking? And why was a huge hand coming down into the damp soil, wrapping around him, and then dropping him off to the side of the nice open area where he’d buried himself to sleep through the long winter?
Toad had managed to stumble a few feet into the tall grass, where he quivered for several minutes before realizing that he was unhurt and in no danger. Had he understood English, he would have understood what had happened, for Nancy had shouted out to Carl:
“Wow! I’ve been turning over the garden, and I came across a buried toad! Fortunately, I missed hitting it with my trowel, and was able to lift it out, brush off some of the dirt, and place it at the edge of the meadow.”
Today, Toad is finally starting to feel himself. He’d been able to regain his strength by resting under a brushpile, where he’d easily been able to find plenty to eat. Now it is time to head for the Pond for the big family gathering. Probably Frog is already there.
As one of the family elders, Toad is responsible for knowing how to get to the Pond and when to begin the journey. Before starting, he has to be sure that everyone is awake and able to proceed, and he wants to be sure that it is warm and wet enough for a comfortable trip. Who wants to be crawling through rough, cold, dry leaves and sticks for hours or days?
Today might be the day to start, but until he hears Frog’s special call, he won’t know exactly where to go. An hour passes, then another hour. Then suddenly, he hears Frog’s call, not just once but twice!
So now it is time to start. He gives his first trill of the season, a long, 15-second staccato trill, proud that his call is much longer and more remarkable than the feeble, throaty trills of the tree frogs. His trill is soon echoed by the other elders, and everyone realizes it’s time to head depart.
Toad, having over-wintered nearby, is one of the first to reach the pond. After hopping onto a little mat made of fallen, floating cattails, he gives an exceptionally long and loud trill to let Frog know that he is back in town.
June 2, 2018. A toad trills from his perch on a clump of last year’s cattail fronds.
By the end of the day, a few others have joined Toad at the pond. They continue to trill, long after dusk, and more and more of their relatives join in. To be more precise, more and more of their male relatives join in, for the males are always the first to reach the Pond. Therefore, it will take two or three days for everyone to gather at the Pond. Progress is also slow, because some of the toads are still groggy, others are unsure of where to go, and the youngest have yet to learn the wonders awaiting them.
Frog and Toad at the Pond
Who really knows how Frog and Toad communicate? Can Frog vary his “plonk” or Toad his trilling to convey their emotions? Can they communicate via subtle changes in expression? Or is eye contact enough? I have no idea how they do it, but do it they do![1]
When they meet in early June, Frog and Toad, like any old friends, presumably talk about their families, their adventures, their favorite food, and their acquaintances. Some of Frog’s children have grown up and acquired prime footage on the other side of the Pond. The youngest are still tadpoles that spent the winter under the ice, and Frog undoubtedly points them out to Toad when one of them happens to swim by.
June 17, 2018. One of the nearly three-inch long green frog tadpoles that overwintered in the Pond.
Frog fondly remembers his year as a tadpole, when all he had to do was swim around the pond with his pals, easily finding enough to eat simply by opening his mouth and too young and naïve to worry about the great blue herons or snapping turtles that periodically stop by for a meal.
Toad remembers nothing of what was barely a month that he spent as a tadpole. When hardly an inch long, he had to climb out of the pond along with hundreds of his cousins, cross the trail, and head off into the woods, unaware of the many dangers lurking there. Now, as an adult, he admits to Frog that he has no idea how or why he was one of the few that survived.
[1] For documentation of interactions between frogs and toads, see the excellent series of reports published by Arnold Lobel, beginning with Frog and Toad are Friends, Harpers & Row, 1970.
Toad Joins the Party
The next morning, Frog and Toad swap tales about encounters (actual, enhanced, and totally made-up) with turtles, trout, heron, kingfishers, and otters. But the trilling builds as more and more toads reach the pond, and Toad finally must tend to his duties. At least that is what Toad tells Frog. What he describes as a family reunion is more accurately described as a “party” and what will certainly appear to Frog and any other observers to be rather a wild one. Frog smiles, because he knows why Toad leaped so quickly and so excitedly into the water.
He watches Toad swim out to the middle of the pond, then back to a spot a few yards from the shore where he just hangs in the water, waiting. Waiting for what? Well, it doesn’t take much of a naturalist to answer that question, because he and all the other trilling males are waiting for the females to arrive. Toad has taken up a position as a sentry, hoping to be the first to see a female swimming in from the other side of the Pond.
June 2, 2018, 75 degrees, partly cloudy. Toads trilled some yesterday, but much more today. There were many males, but only a few females, which may explain why their energy was so devoted to their loud trilling.
Although a few other males take up sentry positions across the cove, many more sit at the shoreline, trilling again and again. Frog sits in his usual spot, willing to stay close to the unruly mass of trilling toads in order to watch the courting drama unfolding all around him.
Finally, a female shows up. Toad knows it is a female, because she is so much larger than he is. She swims by, lets Toad approach, apparently likes what she sees in Toad, and accepts him as a mate. Toad settles on her broad back, wraps his arms around her, and waits for her to start laying eggs. They remain in this position for many minutes, and eventually she emits her eggs, which appear to be tiny dots along a pair of slim strands that are several feet long. From his position on her back, Toad emits a cloudy spray that will fertilize the eggs. Another male toad climbs on her back, but Toad doesn’t care – he hardly even notices when a third male grabs one of Toad’s legs as well as one of hers. With the weight of three males on her back, the clump of toads sinks two feet to the bottom of the pond. The males don’t even notice that they’re under water, but she has had enough. Since she is so much bigger and stronger, she simply pushes them all up for a gulp of air.
All around them, other couples and clumps of mating toads are madly circling in the water, while unattached males look for a chance to join in. The churning and the trilling continue until the pond finally falls silent around midnight.
June 19, 2006, hot, hazy and humid. The toads were partying today. One or more males would glom onto a female, and dozens of clumps of toads would roil the water all along the shore.
The next morning, the party continues, but Toad has had enough. He stops by for a final hour with Frog, then heads slowly back into the forest. They won’t meet again until next spring. Toad is exhausted, but happy to have spent time with Frog both before and after the “family reunion.”
Frog Watches and Waits
Frog is happy to have had time with Toad, but he is also happy that the rowdy toad family has gone. The noise and turmoil of their parties is too much of a disruption to his quiet life at the edge of the pond. He is glad that frog families are less numerous and much more decorous than those of toads. He will have plenty of chances to find a mate over the next month or so, and meanwhile he can keep a watch over the tadpoles, which now are losing their tails and growing arms and legs.
June 22, 2018. A green frog sits at the edge of the pond, pondering who knows what?
