home

T

he frogs are at it again. From many shallow water spots around town, they’ve been sending up a chorus this spring. Crashing crescendos will give way to soft passages where one frog takes the solo… but the others can’t seem to resist and before you know it, they’re all bleating and belting out their arias again.

A week or so ago, the cacaphony was so loud in a pond alongside the Oriental Harbor Place condos, that we returned and recorded it. Here’s what it sounded like:

The cattail pond where the frogs sing, sometimes through the night. Betsy Quitkin (in red in the upper left) says one frog has taken up part-time residence on their third-floor balcony.

Some love this reminder that even next to our homes, a little bit of nature goes wild. It’s a lullaby. Others say frogs can keep them from a good night’s sleep.

Betsy Quitkin and Steve Leech live on the third floor in Oriental Harbor Place and like the sound. Steve says the frogs sometimes wake him up at 2 in the morning, but realizing it’s just the frogs, he goes back to sleep. He says he likes them as part of the spring ritual.

Steve and Betsy have one frequent frog visitor to their balcony. They offered a photo:

He may be small, but this fellow has lungs

According to Steve, this fellow changes color, depending on where he is. Those surroundings change often. The frog uses the drainpipe on the outside of the condos to make his way between the third floor balcony and the action amid the cattails.

Several residents who live nearby say that if you look closely in to that goo, you’ll detect some of the frogs. Or if you wait long enough, some of the frogs will come to your door.

It is, we are told, all about love. Birds do it. Bees do it. And the authority on all this, Cole Porter, wrote that frogs do it, too.

Those reeds and cattails may look tranquil by daylight, but for frogs after dark, it’s a nightclub where the barkeep has called, “last call” and in a frantic rush frogs use every amphibious pick-up line they didn’t know they knew.

Posted Tuesday June 10, 2008 by Keith N. Smith