Where Science, Art and Nature Come Together.
I take essentially the same walk every day – one mile up the hill & back on my dirt road – often at the same hour. Some may find that boring, I find it fascinating to watch the little changes from day to day.
So it’s really noticeable when on Monday morning I hear nothing and on Tuesday morning the ponds at the top of the hill are LOUD with sounds of Spring Peepers & Wood Frogs. In the 5AM still I could hear the peep, peep, PEEP, peep, peep, PEEP from more than 100 yards away.
As I got closer the garbling of the Wood Frogs made itself well known. If I were to guess, I’d say that the Peepers were in the front pond, the Wood Frogs in the back pond.
Peepers and Wood Frogs are a joy to me. I don’t have the right kind of habitat for them on my property, although a few always set up housekeeping in the roadside ditch (poor choice), so I mostly get to hear them on my walks.
Then this morning, after some overnight rain, I was graced by glow worms — aka lightening bugs or fireflies. I think it’s quite early to see so many – I saw them in at least 20 spots on my morning walk, some with only 1 of these beetles, some with as many as 8 in a 3 foot radius.
Interestingly, when it started to rain pretty heavily before I got back to the house, those little guys all stopped showing their luminescence entirely. Apparently no point wasting their energy when the drops were heavy. I’m going to join the citizen science Firefly Watch again this year. It’s fun, easy, and adds to our knowledge about these interesting beetles. You can join, too!
Clearly it’s spring and every creature is thinking about love…or at least about reproduction. 🙂