By Sam
Hendren
Published: May 25, 2003
Voice of America News
Along lakeshores and stream banks, even in roadside puddles
and pools, the prairie's frogs and toads are bursting forth
into song. According to retired biology professor Dwight Platt,
there's a good reason for it: they're singing because it's
time to mate. "They breed in ponds and pools, so they
want to breed at a time when there's going to be water around
for a while, and seems to me they like fresh water rather
than stagnant water, so when a pool has just been filled with
rain, they'll begin to call," he says.
To the untrained ear, this is nothing but a frog cacophony.
Dwight Platt is trying to change that. As the natural history
consultant to the Kaufmann Museum in North Newton, Kansas,
Professor Platt has been leading bird and butterfly field
trips for years. He recently conducted his third annual Frog
Frolic to help laypeople identify some of the state's frogs
and toads by their calls.
On an early May evening as dusk began to fall, he took a
group of would-be frog lovers out to the sand hills of western
Harvey County, expecting to hear as many as nine different
species. "The cricket frog, it's sort of a bouncing,"
he says. "I always say it sounds like marbles bouncing."
Dwight Platt does what ornithologists do when describing
bird calls. He equates the frog's sound with an aural equivalent.
After a while, under his patient tutelage, you begin to discern
the "bouncing marbles" voices of the Northern Cricket
Frog.
Farther down the dirt road, we stop at a place where Cricket
Frogs and Western Chorus Frogs join forces, almost drowning
out human voices. Professor Platt describes the Chorus Frog's
call as the sound of a finger being raked across a comb.
So Chorus Frogs make the comb sound and Cricket Frogs sound
like bouncing marbles. Now the retired biologist walks quietly
along a roadside ditch, straining to hear another species.
Even though it's larger in size, its "call" is definitely
more subdued. "Oh there's one, yeah. Everybody hear it?
What's that? That's the Plains Leopard Frog," he says.
The Plains Leopard Frog alternates a 'chuck-chuck-chuck' with
a quieter "cooing" that sounds like a cat's purr.
Surprisingly we didn't hear the frog whose call is easiest
to identify, the bullfrog. Dwight Platt says they won't begin
singing until the weather turns warmer. The chill in the evening
air is probably why we didn't hear any toads either, although
several can be found in this part of Kansas. Perhaps the most
unusual is the Woodhouse's Toad. "It sounds like somebody's
in trouble giving loud screams," he says.
For several years, Dwight Platt has been counting frogs in
central Kansas for the Department of Wildlife and Parks, part
of the state's efforts to establish a baseline to gauge future
changes in the frog population. Even though this long-term
study is in its early stages, Professor Platt believes the
local amphibians are doing well and sounding good.
Reprinted from http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=0E44EE44-68B0-438C-9DBD3446A611AB78
