The Time For Toads is Upon Us!

A Few Hours with Toads

Mission: Obtain stereo recordings of American Toads (Bufo americanus); capture the event, the first pulse of calling for the species this year. Photograph singing toads, and other critters.

Destination: Cattail Pond in Hillsborough, NC (Durham Co.) .25 miles from my backyard.
3/13/13 midnight -- 02:30 hrs

An observations, first --this is the first quantity of toad calling I've heard this year.

Background: -- there are variables such as time of year, temperature, weather, and water level which all contribute to a time and place, in this case to a nexus, --to this toad event.

Chronology: The day started with a passing cold front and a lot of rain overnight and into late morning. There were puddles everywhere, flooded sidewalks at my school, and lingering runoff even as the clouds cleared into late morning.

The setup for this (night of toads) includes a spell of cold nights approaching the freezing point, and then temperatures last night in the upper 50s with lots of showers/ a good gully washing rain.  This rainy night was followed by a day with temperatures near 70 degrees F.
During the day of March 12th, the faint ringing of toads was heard before noon, and Chorus frogs were ripping/ calling loudly seemingly without stop.

The reason I was not here before midnight, was due to the hope that the rains that fell here, had also fallen somewhere else, but they had not, making this a moot, neither here nor there, point.


Narrative: So, under a brilliant starry sky, I approached the recording area, as the clock turned from Tuesday to Wednesday. The low areas of the grassy jeep trail were flooded, forming larger puddles in deeper tire ruts. The route was a slog,  with mud threatening to steal the boots, I managed not to go fall, as age, a tripod, a chair, a backpacks and mic cables, all made my walking somewhat impaired anyway.

(Bufo americanus) singing not far from the cover of cattails stalks 

notice the vibration on the water surface

There were Upland Chorus Frogs calling close nearby in the grass next to the woods line, and gleaming yellow in the light of the headlamp were the eyes of American Toads.  The toads were floating in the puddle and sitting on the muddy edges.from the puddles.  Spring Peepers were nearby but not in numbers, and while some toads were sprinkled along the way, a louder ringing chorus was beyond, towards the heart of the cattail pond.

On approach the spring peepers were deafening
And in a patch of open water between the cattails and grass edge of pond, there were many toads. Toads were calling, swimming, diving, amplexed (males holding on to females). There were pairs near other pairs, and odd frogs climbing onto pairs, there were pairs underwater, pairs on top of the surface, and many single frogs swimming and floating on the surface.

Behind the amplexed pairs there were thin lines of eggs, black BB sized eggs, surrounded by clear gelatinous connective tube-like sac.  I placed the tripod with the pair of mics on it in the middle of the most toads, it was on the edge of open water with just a few short cattail stalks.

The mic cables were extended back to the shoreline where a chair was placed for both me and the recorder, and sometimes just for the recorder.
This seemed the heart of the toad noise, and while you could not miss them, as many were within arms length, the American Toads were not alone on the pond.  The loudest voice was the Spring Peeper, they to me are earsplitting when too close.  Beyond the din of peepers and toads towards the shore, were the Upland Chorus Frogs, and also heard tonight were occasional clucks which sounded like Southern Leopard Frogs, and definitely the low growls of Pickerel Frogs.

(Bufo americanus) singing from partial cover

(Bufo americanus) waiting, listening, approaching

pairs of (Bufo americanus) in amplexus 01:00 hrs Hillsborough NC

Additional Notes from the night:

--occasional breeze,
--a Barred Owl’s intro howl,

--the ringing of the main toad chorus was audible from over 100 yards

--by 1:00 there were many frogs, amplexed pairs and others piled up near the mics in mostly open water, with a few cattail stalks.

--long lines of eggs behind amplexed females.

--lower pitched gargled call when toad was calling while partially submerged or maybe swimming.

--Many frogs were swimming about -- towards singing frogs and in general.

--Most seemed to call from near the base of grass or sedges,  few called from the open, but near cover.

--Hard to get pics of singing toads without grass/ sedge or cattail partially obscuring them.

--Quite a few release calls.

--Temperature dropped into the low 40s and toads continued to sing past 2:00am

--There were Pickerel Frogs, and I believe a few Southern Leopard Frogs calling, definitely some Pickerel Frogs.

--The most visible of all species present was the American Toads, they were everywhere, and eye-shine was easily visible with the headlamp.