An exuberant racket rises, croaks, and clatters from the
swamp. While doves nuzzle on overhanging
limbs, offering a chorus of coos, their soft voices are bellowed to the
background by the wood frogs’ song of seduction. It is raucous and joyful, and in my relief
and gratitude at the demise of this hard winter, I wish I, too, had an annual
spring welcome to add to this swelling orchestra of Nature’s voices.
Our fellow creatures have crept from hiding, out from under
the porch floorboards, out from hollows in trees, out from clefts in the rocky
ledge in the woods, and out from the sucking mud of the swamp. To tide them over in this month still barren
of food, many have turned to the bird feeder at the end of our yard. Chipmunks, a portly raccoon, three deer, a
coyote, a turkey, and a ground hog have sampled seeds shaken loose by greedy
squirrels.
In my glee at these appearances, I remember snuggling with
Casey and Tucker, reading Stephen Kellogg’s Tally
Ho Pinkerton or Come Play with Me
by Marie Hall Ets. While over-brash
hunters or impulsive little girls unsuccessfully sought elusive foxes or fawns,
vigilant young readers could spot the animals hiding in the pictures. “Where is the owl?” or “Can you see a
cardinal?” I’d ask. While scanning the illustrations and hooting a triumphant
“There it is!” the kids learned to
identify the creatures, and love them.
Dave, however, is muted in his enthusiasm at some of these
wildlife sightings. When lily and tulip
shoots are sheared low by foraging animals at the hint of a bud, he growls,
every year, his intention to get a BB gun.
This threat becomes a litany when we glimpse the groundhog’s annual
litter of three soaking up sun on the large flat rock in the yard. I beam and murmur, “they are too cute,” while
Dave grumbles that it’s time for target practice. No worries.
I know he’d never do it…although those seed-thieving squirrels might
push him too far.
Rainy April nights present a particular challenge as the
warm, wet roads compel swamp dwellers to creep forth onto asphalt with perilous
results. A drive home through roads cut
through local bogs is a sad and frustrating obstacle course as one strives to
swerve around tiny hopping bodies, some so small it’s hard to distinguish which
are rain drops and which are frogs.
The other night, Dave drove and I acted as frog spotter as
we neared home after dinner in Fairfield.
Dave did his best to dodge and weave as I winced at close calls and
barked, “Watch it! Careful! There’s another one!” In the path of the three-point back-up into
our parking area, two frogs squatted, unmoving.
We waited a mite, hoping the bulge-eyed suitors would continue their
pilgrimage to the sultry ladies in the pond across the street, but no. So I climbed from the car, assuming a slight
nudge would urge them along. Again,
no.
When I was a child, I did plenty of friendly frog
hunting. In our neighborhood, there were
woods and ponds to explore, and my sisters and I loved to tip toe through
tickly reeds to pause, hands cupped and poised, ready to pounce on unsuspecting
frogs. Often, while swimming underwater
in my aunt’s frigid spring-fed pool, we’d notice frogs swimming beside us,
their bodies stretched long and sleek, thrust forward by those powerful hind
legs and webbed toes. When we returned home from these forays with muddied
hands and sloshing buckets, frogs, salamanders, or earthworms generally
accompanied us, although their stay was brief, as Mom sent us out to free them
as soon as she was aware of their presence.
But that was decades ago and I’ve not held a frog in
years. When these two travelers blocked
the car and refused to budge, I slipped my hands gently under their soft
bellies, one by one, and carried them to safety. To a degree that surprised me, I was moved by
the weight of those small lives, and the pulse of their heartbeats against my
palms.
How often, I wonder, do children gently hold frogs now? Like so many other woods, those I roamed with
my sisters as a child have since been bulldozed for homes and a ramp to the
highway; many kids don’t have the easy exposure I did. Phones and video games have replaced frogs
in children’s hands, and I worry about the loss of connection and reverence for
nature, without that sense of small bodies and the pulse of a heartbeat in
one’s palm.
