M Y FIVE BIGGEST HUNKS O’ BURNING BULLFROG have up and gone, the oldest boys out back who I was certain were Prime Prince Material. Sigh. Left me flat, during or just after a dramatic 2.75-inch rainfall recently, without so much as a farewell ribbit. And look at the mere pipsqueaks who have got hold of the larger pool since, which they’d never dare have gone near if the omnivore Big Boys were still around (and that’s a froggirl up top; not big and not even a boy!). What’s up with my frogs? Was it something I said?
I think I know what’s up, sort of: A frog expert I emailed with last week after my tragic loss confirms that she has seen large movements after rains like I described, perhaps a hunting expedition (meaning they will be back, to breed, shortly) or maybe the move was to find new breeding grounds (a sayonara of the more permanent type).
Bullfrogs (about 3 1/2 to 6 inches in body length) are true aquatic animals, meaning they need a watery environment, period, unlike the Green Frogs (2 to 3 1/2 inches) I am left with (including the sexed-up adult male, above, whose intentions and gender I discern from his yellow throat coloration and the raucous behavior he’s been exhibiting lately). I think he has (bug) eyes for the lady up top. Green Frogs can deal with a terrestrial environment, at least part of the time; bulls cannot…except in big rains, when the opportunity to move presents itself. So off they went, in search of greener pastures, I suppose, perhaps singin’ in the rain.
When it’s wet out, the normally aquatic Bullfrogs can move much longer distances: “They have been anecdotally recorded to move about 1.5 km or more, astonishing as that may sound,” says Megan Gahl, an environmental scientist and co-author of a recent study at the University of Maine on Bullfrogs’ use of seasonal pools, published in the journal “Wetlands.”
Once breeding gets under way, they are less likely to move this way, she says. Hurry back, boys, or it’s over between us. Eek; unimaginable. But seriously, how can you leave me with little guys like that young green, above? He’s cute, I guess, but really! Not my type.
More amazing details to share in the wake of this separation-anxiety event: You can also tell boys from girls in bulls and even greens by the size of their, er, tympanum. No, that’s not something dirty: It’s their eardrum. Girls have tympanum equal to or smaller than their eye size, the boys’ are bigger. And then there’s this magic story:
A few days after the bulls left, the medium-sized frogs (greens and leopards), who as I say would never have dared go near the biggest of my three water features just 30 feet away for fear of being eaten, all hopped across the lawn together in an amphibian moving-up ceremony, as if on cue. The biggest pool is now theirs. The medium-sized pool they used to use: Now my smallest frogs, one-year greens and the occasional Leopard Frog and so forth, have all shacked up there.
In the smallest water gardens, nobody now lives. Since the Big Guys are gone, we only have two castes in the system here now, small and medium. Amazing, huh? Talk about adaptation to changes in environment. Talk about opportunism.
So I ask you: What odds do you give me for getting my beloved biggest frogboys back, some of them individuals I have known for three or four or maybe five years each, and could actually tell apart? Don’t believe me? Bullfrogs live an average of seven to nine years in the wild (up to 16 in captivity, says Animal Diversity Web, my favorite reading matter on such topics), and don’t even reach sexual maturity until age 3 to 5 years. And you know my guys were sexy beasts, don’t you recall? I mean, look at them:
joy in mudville: big frog in a small pond 
frogfight! 
frogboy? dogboy? frogdogboy? 
First: Nooooooo!
Next: He’ll be back Margaret. He just went out for some adventure. Or maybe a visionquest. Keep us abreast.
Oh wait, it’s more than one? Yup. Definitely some machismo high jinx going on here. ;)
Hi Margaret: Thanks for the fascinating info on the frogs. We have bullfrogs in our pond, but I haven’t studied them the way you have. We also have a few tree frogs. I’m more of a toad gal – I’m always rescuing them when they end up in the barn, and I’ve taught my Toby-dog to “be nice” to toads. (This works because I take him out on a lead at night when there are lots of toads around.) Your frog photos are outstanding. I hope the little ones you have now will grow big and grow on you the way the original frog-boys did. Cheers/Yvonne
Thank you so much for all the interesting info. I’m a frog-lover, I’ve been one for years. I used to hike over to a nearby pond to sit quietly and watch the bullfrogs and turtles as they basked in the sun or sat in the mud and sang. The first sign of spring is not seeing a robin but hearing the spring peepers. Long ago, I adopted the frog as my “totem”. Still, I know so little about the actual creatures.
Isn’t that just like a guy? Just when its time for… Couldn’t resist the joke, but they are handsome in their handsome copper verdigris skins, and I hope they come home safe and sound when the rain stops.
They just went out for a pack of smokes or a loaf of bread. I’m sure they’ll be back, some day…
Margaret,
We’ve all experience those watershed moments in our lives, when we know that in our professions or in our personal lives it may be (thunder roars) …… time to move on. Even frog boys feel it!
Perhaps they merely went to attend a Burning Man festival.
A frog he would a’wooing go, whether his mother would let him or no …..
I think they’ve just gone a’wooing in all the lovely puddles from that big rain, and they’ll come home when things dry up.
How cute is this!
~ Gabriela ~
I know where my princes have gone. The circle of life. If not for them, I would not get to enjoy visits from beautiful cranes. I had time to grab the video camera last Saturday. http://green-house.tv/video/a-crane-in-the-pond-at
Your frog stories are sweet. We have lots of frogs in the ponds – but I haven’t yet taken the time to take a closer look like you. Some day I will – your photos and info. make me want to.
Out for a smoke…on a visionquest…or to the Burning Man festival…or a’wooing…hmmm? You all have some *very* interesting ideas, none I had considered before. :)
Welcome, Melissa. I can barely watch your video, and that’s the first thing I thought about, of course, bullfrog sushi, though my garden pools are like 10 feet across and we have no cranes (the occasional blue heron nearby, but again my pools are so small). I am praying for “gone hunting/fishing” and that they will return (probably with a heap of dirty laundry and some fish needing cleaning and frying). Crossing my fingers.
Why this post reminded me of the time my daughter came running up the basement stairs screaming because of the ginormous toad down there, I don’t know. Your photograph second from bottom is fabulous. I’m going to get Pete to look at it. I think your guys are off on a hunting trip – right now they’re probably sitting around in their underwear drinking beer and playing cards.
OMG!!! They’ll be back — they’re just going through some of that “grass is greener” stuff. Sometimes you have to wander to know how good you have it at home!!!!!
It’s amazing how much personality an amphibian can exhibit, Margaret – your story is so poignant and your photos so cute that one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Like Dolly Parton’s character in Steel Magnolias can we say laughter through tears is our favorite emotion?
Although it makes you sad to lose the Frogboys, maybe looking for mates outside the immediate circle is a way to keep the genetic material mixed up and fresh for the species?
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I am so upset, I never got to meet any of them. I will pray that they do return. Glad to have pictures of them on my bulletin board.
I will have to fall in love your your new boys!!
How ungrateful, just when they get a website of their very own. Would they need another deluge to make it back home? Was there a deluge when they showed up the first time? You probably don’t remember.
Hope everything goes smoothly on your Open Day coming up. Last year there was a big storm, no?
Yah! Set yourself up a toad house near the smallest water feature.
You didn’t import the bullfrogs, right? If they chose your pond on their own, they (or their descendants) will make their way back again.
I love your frog love. I always try to make my garden hospitable to any amphibious visitors. Sadly, they leave my neighbour’s pond for greener pastures, giving my often dry garden the cold (clammy) shoulder. Likely, they do eat a few slugs as they pass through.
Imagine how the frogboys describe you in their mythology! I’m with chigal–no way will they and their grandkids stay away.
Welcome, Helen at Toronto Gardens. Nice to meet another lover of things amphibian. :)
@Kathy: Yes, last year’s Open Days tours (well, the reception afterward for the Garden Conservancy) were accompanied by terrifying electrical storms of an unusual nature. Scary. Forecast for this Sunday is good!
@Chigal: No, bullfrogs are native to this region (as are the green frogs). They showed up in the back yard 15 or more years ago, when I dug my first water garden.
Margaret,
Our biggest boys have left, too. Not only that, but the turtles, especially the big snapping turtles have been on the move lately. We’ve seen them crossing our big, open meadow on their way from one neighbor’s pond to another 1/2 mile away. Seen them all around the roadsides, too (some in not very good condition as they didn’t make the crossing).
If that’s not enough, snakes are also on the move in this rain. Sadly, there has been an increase in snake bites from 100 this time last year to 175 poisonous so far this year. Fortunately for us, only one of the snakes (copperhead) around my neighborhood is poisonous and all the others are good vole predators. In other parts of the state, rattlers and water moccasins are a problem.
Nature does interesting things in rain. Our pet cockatiel thinks it is the monsoon season and he has no mate to answer his calls (what a ruckus).
Cameron
I am wondering if the frog boys have fallen victim to the food chain? The flourishing environment which exists in your gardens will be replenished with more frog boys before long; I feel sure of it!
They’re off cow tipping.
Oh your frogboys and girls make me so happy!!!! Here’s hope that the biggies come back! BEAUTIFUL PHOTOS by the way!!!!! Just beautiful!!!!!!
Welcome, Michele W, and glad to hear that you like the frogs. Me, too. It’s sunny today and two green frog males are competing out back for attention. Loudmouths. See you soon again.
Welcome, Countess of Nassau County. You know, I should have realized that…there are so many cows right down the road. I will go check at the dairy farms on the other end of the road immediately. By the way, I went to visit your blog just now and saw a couple of familiar faces…Eddie and Jaithan…but I can’t leave a comment because the option for “name-url” isn’t turned on. :( But I tried. Blogger is a little oddball for non-Blogger bloggers. (Now THAT was a sentence.) See you soon again I hope.
Could the frogs have been eaten by snakes, raccoons, some kind of owl, heron or hawk??? I have found parts of birds (tails, wings, and feathers) on my lawn, by the bird feeder. Once I saw a small hawk, dart into a large ornamental grass, and out it came with a small bird in it’s beak. Then one day I saw a hawk, the size of a large chicken, swoop down and grab a squirrel on the ground by the feeder, and it pinned it to the ground. For a good amount of time, the hawk kind of played with it , and then killed it , and after a while flew away with it.
Hi, Fred. Yes, they could have been eaten, but because only the 5 largest bullfrogs are gone and everyone else was happily still there, and because it happened right during/after a huge rain, and because there were no body parts (as there always are when skunks or raccoons kill things here, ugh)…and because the biologist I asked said they do travel at this time of year, I am hoping for/betting on migration for food/mating territory. Hope they are OK, just down the road apiece.
I am also a frog lover and was so surprised to find them disappearing from my pond. Then I spotted a blue heron one day standing in the middle of the pond – going fishing – and there went one of the bullfrogs! Could that be your problem? Love your site!!
Welcome, Babs. Not this time, but when I had large koi many years ago I had a heron come eat them. My pool is so small it’s not of much interest to herons, thankfully, except once in a blue moon. See you soon again and thank you for your kindness.
Margaret, I thought of you when I ran across a beautiful green and turquoise frog at Long Hill in Massachusetts. http://macgardens.org/?p=1017
I leave it up to you to do the ID. :)
Your love for froggies is equal to mine for orange salamanders in the Catskills. I stumbled this. Sexy beasts, indeed!
Welcome, Amy, and thanks for the positive feedback. Salamanders are amazing creatures, too with a fascinating life cycle. I have some of them here on the site. There’s this red newt and also this spotted one. Enjoy…and see you soon again, I hope.
I first want to say I am brand new to your site and I am just beginning to explore all that is there…wonderful. But I need to respond to your frog story because I have my own. We put in a water feature August of 2006 and it was on Mother’s Day of 2007 that we noticed the frogs! They were part of our outside environment and we enjoyed watching them from the screened porch nearby. We originally had 5 or 6 and one by one they disappeared until finally there are none. We saw 2 come out of hibernation last year and when we returned from a trip mid-Spring of last year…..the remaining 2 were gone! We were frogless all last summer. I hoped we would maybe have some this year but we do not. Why did they go???? I keep hoping they will return or new ones will come but…I am starting to lose hope. We live near the Delaware River and there are a number of small creeks nearby so maybe? maybe? one or two will find their way here? We miss you frogs!!
Just now noticed the salamander comments. Do you know anything about skinks? We have them too.
Hello, Madeline, and yes, we do have them here (though not in the little backyard pools). Fascinating animals. Salamanders everywhere…skinks not so commonly seen but here somewhere. :) Some of my frogboys came back in a fall rainstorm (three bulls) and have stayed so far this season. We shall see. The populations shift to take advantage of breeding area, food supply, and so on, as with all of nature. I love when they choose to be here with me.
Sounds strange and wonderful this sudden migration. I hope the frogboys know what they are doing. Your story makes me think of cats I have known who disappeared for days, weeks, or, in the case of one cat, months, then showed up at the back door. I think some or all of the boys will come back.