Spring Peepers

In the spring there are two sounds of the farm that I anticipate with relish. The first sound comes with the early spring rains, which in the evening bring an ancient and magical sound. The sound celebrates, in it’s purest sense, life. It is the mating calls of hundreds, if not thousands, of frogs. Most of the frogs we hear on these nights are tiny tree frogs, like the Cope's Gray tree frog. They fill the night with their love songs, as they have for perhaps 125 million years. Listen.

The song is amazing, but it is endangered. Today biologist believe that 120 species of frogs have gone extinct just since the 1980s and that a third of current species are endangered. Enjoy their song, think about how ancient it is, and use a little less so they can keep singing.

And what is the other sound that I look forward to? You’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to hear the sound of a Lindon tree.