May 03, 1979 - Toads, Frogs and PeppersPage 12A
I wonder how many of you take walks in
the evening or at night. This kind of
experience is something special, provided
you have the correct night and a worthy
area to walk.in.
Just the other night we walked down in
back of our house by our small pond. The air
was still, but the warmth of the spring sun
was slowly being replaced by the cool
dampness of evening. By now the willows
hung green with new growth and there was a
shiv of the new moon high in the sky. What
drew me to the pond was the low, rasping
call of the common toad.
In the early spring there are generally two
basic calls we hear coming from our ponds
and wet areas. The heavy, low call of the
toad and the short, high-pitched peep-peep
of the earlier spring peeper. Few ever see
the peeper, for it's so small and well
camouflaged that it-takes much searching
and listening before it's found. I've often
tried with flashlight in hand to locate them.
It's really a night-time stalking game. The
slightest sound or movement quiets the
whole pond, then a lone peeper will start
cautiously peeping. Soon all around the pond
will again join in the chorus.
I'm sure what sounds like the true call of
spring to most of us does not always come
out that way to those who live nearby. The
chorus can be deafening. And when you
have both the toad and the peepers the noise
can be overpowering. This emotion is to
attract the female of the species, and with
all that calling I'm sure there's not a female
around that's missed.
Frogs Have Original Bagpipes
Frogs also call like toads by expelling air
through their big air sac that bellows out
under their chin. I guess you'd call this the
original bagpipe, and it works very similar-
ly. The sac is filled with air and then
released.
Our pond has only the toad calling. We've
all seen him, I'm sure, in our garden. He's
gray with a dry, warty, rough skin. Frogs,
on the other hand, have a smooth skin and
are wet. Were told all creatures originated
from the water and our toad, like most
amphibians, still has not thrown off its last
link with this liquid world. Each year it
migrates from upland back to the pond to
mate and lay its eggs. Fortunate is the
person who has toads in his garden or
around his home, for they live exclusively on
insects, such as Japanese beetles, potato
bugs, slugs and cutworms, and just about
any insect that moves.
Frogs also do their share of insect
collecting, but they must have water nearby
to survive. I also like the idea that if you
have toads and frogs around it's a true
indicator of a healthy environment. By that
I mean, should the area be overdosed with
insecticides the deadly spinoff is that the
toads and frogs will suffer because they eat
the contaminated insects.
This reminds me of a story about pest-
icides I often tell: of a neighboring farmer
who told me he had sprayed his sprouts one
evening and the next morning awoke to find
all the earth worms dead on top of the
TOADS, FROGS and Peepers
ground. To show the significance of this
throughout the area...when was the last
time you saw seagulls following a plow?
Years ago it was a common spring sight to
see the gulls following the plow in all our
fields. Today it's a different story. Sure we
see_the gulls sitting in the fields resting but
seldom do we see them gleaning the fields as
they did in years past.
Toad Performs "Miracle"
Toad's eggs laid in a large gelatinous
mass hatch out in 3 to 12 days, depending on
the temperature of the water. We've all seen
the little black tadpoles I'm sure, and
everyone knows the story that they-grow
into the adults, eventually losing their taill-V
and gaining feet. It takes two to three years
for a polliwog to mature into a full grown
toad. During the winter the toad hibernates
deep in the ground, not in the water.
Toads have the wonderful ability to dig. I
remember as a boy putting a flower pot over
a toad to keep him for the next day and how
surprised I was when I lifted the pot up to
find him completely gone. I thought he had
miraculously gotten out through the small
hole in the bottom of the flower pot but
no...with a little prodding in the ground out
he popped.
Ponds and wet spots are becomin,
scarcer and scarcer. After all, what good a"
a pond or a swampy piece of woodland? To
some it is only thought of as an obstacle to
fill in. so it may be sold as a building lot. Yet
that very pond, with a little planning, could
act as the focal point for the whole
community. Look at Wolf Pit in Mattituck.
How fortunate we are to have someone likt,
Judge Tuthill, who gave the pond and land
around it to the people. Even in the winter
when everything is frozen and asleep in the
pond, it is used for ice skating.
I often think of the beautiful kettle hole
pond that was at one time at the west end of
Riverhead. off Route 58 by the cauliflovA
block .A whole fresh water ecosystem was
wiped out in a few days by filling. This area
also had attributes other than the natural
ones of birds. fish and plants. Natural pond
areas have served the land well for thou-
sands of years in their capacity of collecting
excess rainwater and putting it back into tlt
ground where it belongs Those who know
the area I speak of also know, the problems
of flooding that has e occurred there recent-
ly. Enough said.
Endowed With Wet Areas
Those in Calverton and Manorville are
especially endowed with wet areas that not
only have the toad and peeper but a wide
variety of other frogs as well Here we find
the wood frog and the great bullfro that
calls inthe deepest of voices. Each of them
sings a different tune and draws a different
heart,
And so, when you step outside your home
and hear the peeper, toads or frogs callina-'
remember it is a sign of a healthy environ-
ment. And you have been spared the
disaster of a polluted world. It's when you do
not hear this most wondrous sound of spring
that you should be concerned, for it is then
we are all in trouble.
L.:
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Sponsored by The North Fork Bank & Trust, WRCN-Radio & The Suffolk Times
mul:cLarrt
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