Tadpoles Galore—Part 1

We have a very cute critter around here—the tree frog. It's a "gray tree frog", to be exact. It took me many years to identify the source of a chattery, trilly sound that sometimes came from various locations in the woods around us. Was it a bird? An insect of some sort? After much speculation and some research, I finally concluded a few years ago that the call must be from the tree frog, although we had yet to see one. They are well camouflaged and very shy little critters. They are gray, warty like a toad, less than two inches long, and cling to warty-gray tree bark. You could be looking right at one and not even know it.

But patience won out and I finally was able to gaze upon one, a couple of years ago—although not on a tree. At the time we were watering our garden from three interconnected blue plastic barrels, into which we pumped water and then dispersed that water from the barrels via a sump pump onto thirsty veggies. One day I heard a strange call coming from the vicinity of the barrels—sort of a hollow, reverberating, tree frog-like trill. When I approached the barrels, however, the call stopped. I hadn't yet guessed that the strange-sounding critter might actually be in a barrel. How would any little noise maker like I was hearing climb up and into one of them?

Finally it dawned on me that the hollow sound was coming from one of the barrels. I walked over and lifted one lid, then another. In the third barrel I found myself eye to bug-eye with a wee tree frog. He blinked, I replaced the lid. At last I had seen a genuine tree frog!

It was funny to hear him call, as his sound had a distinctly different timbre from all other tree frogs who were calling from the nearby woods. (The male frog calls, trying to lure a female towards him—with his prowess as a singer. When she comes near, he mounts her and fertilizes the upwards of 2000 eggs she carries, which she then deposits in his private little pond. In this case, however, his chosen pond was a plastic water barrel, so these critters were entering uncharted mating territory.)

I speculated about what type of female might be attracted to his hollow, echoing call emanating from the bowels of a barrel. Would he be more successful than the typical woods singer, given the unique quality of his song, or would he be largely ignored and ridiculed by the local gal frogs? Maybe there just might be a female whose ear was specially bent towards his weird call—an echoey mate made in froggy heaven, just for him? All this was idle speculation on my part, since I would not likely be able to monitor the sexual success or failure of our barrel frog. I'm not sure but what it would be considered animal voyeurism, anyway.

Then one day a couple of weeks later, out of curiosity, I stopped by the barrel and peeked in, to see if our gray resident amphibian was still home. Lo and behold, I found two frogs perched inside the barrel's rim! Was this his mate (or about-to-be mate)? Was it even a female? They both stared at me, as if they really wished I'd disappear. So I did.

Or was it possibly a rival? Were they about to joust for the honor of being alpha barrel frog? I had done some reading, and found out that the dominant tree frog will inhabit a prime piece of froggy real estate, alongside his chosen pool. He then calls out, doing his best to lure females to his post. Subdominant male tree frogs will quietly hunker down nearby, posing no direct challenge to the alpha frog. They patiently wait, hoping that the king will sing so beautifully, that he calls in several females. Then, while he is otherwise occupied with his mounting, they will pose as desirable prospective papas, and see if they can get it on with the extra ladies who've shown up.

So I looked once again at the pair of frogs in the barrel (almost as funny as a barrel of monkeys), wondering just what I was looking at. Since I have no way of telling male from female (nor would I try, even if I did know—I'm not lifting the butt of a slimy frog and inspecting its genitals!), I could not know what roles these two froggies were playing out: mates or rivals. Wait and see.

More developments next time...