Wood Frogs, looking for love in 2019...

This afternoon we took a trip to the Forest Hill Nature Area.  Shara wanted to walk the trails and I wanted to find something to photograph.  We spent a lot of time at Forest Hill last summer when I was doing my Days of Summer photography project - I expect to spend many hours there again this spring as I work on another project.

Walking the trails I photographed Red-winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows, a bird nest, cattails, and my first snake of the year (Eastern Garter Snake).  Near Forest Hill's South Woods (see map) I heard something I have been waiting for all spring, the laughing/quacking sounds of mating Wood Frogs. 

Known both as Rana sylvatica and Lithobates sylvaticus, the Wood Frog is, with the Western Chorus Frog and the Spring Peeper, one of the earliest breeding frogs in mid-Michigan.  I hear them calling every spring, but I have never had any success in photographing them during the mating season.  Normally when I near a vernal pond full of Wood Frogs, they immediately stop calling and remain silent until I leave the area. 

Today was different.

The frogs stopped calling as I neared the pond, but I could see them swimming around everywhere.  After a couple minutes of standing still, several frogs began calling again.  They continued calling even when I started to move around to get photographs.  Shara walked up to the pond and the frogs continued calling even as we talked (and laughed) about the frogs.  Several frogs even let us approach within a few feet as they were so intent on mating.   I photographed several individual frogs swimming around the pond, but the best part was photographing a couple pairs of frogs in amplexus.  Amplexus is the mating position of Wood Frogs (and many other species of frogs and toads).  Male Wood Frogs will climb onto a female's back and clasp her with his forelegs, clinging tightly until she has released all of her eggs.  Sometimes they get so excited or frantic that males will attempt to clasp onto other males.  This results in a flurry of agitated croaking and swimming.

No agitation from me, only photographs.  Enjoy!

Sparring bucks - Trail Cam pictures (18 October 2017)

I went out about a week ago and retrieved the memory cards from my trail cameras.  Both cameras are located along busy wildlife trails.  As Fall progresses toward Winter, the animals have become more active in their search for foods.  In the case of White-tailed Deer, they have also become increasingly active with the approach of mating season.  Also known as "the rut", mating season for White-tailed Deer is preceded by a period in which bucks actively seek does and compete with other bucks for mating opportunities.

As I tell students, "Bucks have antlers to fight, with other bucks, over girls."  This always gets a laugh.  Despite all the time I have spent in the woods, I have never seen this in person, but now I have captured it on a trail camera.

This small buck appears to be watching something in the distance...

It's another similar-sized buck.  The two size each other up for a moment...

Once they lock antlers, the goal is to push each other around until one buck decides that the other buck is more powerful and flees.

Most bucks will typically only engage a buck of similar size - a small buck will typically not attempt to fight a much-larger buck, but will submit without conflict.  Even if that occurs, the large buck may chase away smaller bucks in order to preserve his own mating opportunities.  The small bucks above would probably have fled immediately if confronted by the buck shown below.

In a knot...

Yesterday, as I was collecting some pond water at Chipp-A-Waters Park, I noticed four different Northern Water Snakes (Nerodia sipedon) around the margins of the ponds.  I have found snakes around this pond before; the pond is full of things they like to eat such as frogs, tadpoles, fish, leaches, etc..  So it was no surprise to find one near this pond.  It was unusual to find more than one at a time.

It's confusing, but you can count four snakes in this picture - the female is the biggest and the other three are males

Why were all of these snakes congregated in one place?

The answer to that question soon became obvious.

One of the snakes that I saw was significantly larger than the other three snakes.  Not only that, but the three smaller snakes were vigorously pursuing the largest snake.  Eventually all four snakes clustered together in a loose ball on some cattail stalks a dozen feet from the edge of the pond.

The period April to June is mating season for Northern Water Snakes.  The largest snake was a female.  The smaller snakes were males, competing for the opportunity to mate.  Eventually one (or more) of the males successfully mated with the female.

Female (center) and largest male (right) Northern Water Snake - he was the apparent winner of the mating competition.

I don't expect to find a bunch of snake eggs any time soon.  Northern Water Snakes give birth to live babies (7 to 9 inches long) during late summer.  Once the babies are born they are completely on their own.

One thing that I noticed about these snakes was the color variation.  All Northern Water Snakes have a pattern of dark striped with a (usually) lighter background of brown or grey.  As they age, their colors typically darken so there is little difference between the stripes and the background color.  On of the three male snakes was noticeably lighter than his co-suitors.  His stripes were an almost olive green against a tan background.  You can this in the two pictures below.

A lighter color morph Northern Water Snake

In this photo you can really see the color variation in the species - fours snakes, four different colors

It's nice to have the opportunity to see and interact with this species.  I didn't see my first Northern Water Snake in the wild in Mt. Pleasant until 2013, despite having worked in Mt. Pleasant Parks for nearly a decade.  Now I see them on a somewhat regular basis, especially at Chipp-A-Waters Park.

Just for fun...  A group of snakes can be known as a"knot".  I can see why!

Sounds of Spring - Spring Peepers

We spent the past week in the Traverse City area.  When we pulled up to our hotel on Friday night we immediately noticed a familiar sound.  The area behind the hotel is basically a shrub swamp and this weekend that swamp was hosting dozens of male Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) each hoping to attract a mate with his peep peep peep calls.  The louder and more frequently a frog call, the better his chances of attracting a mate.  There was also at least one Western Chorus Frog (Pseudacris triseriata) that periodically adds his voice.

It didn't happen while I was recording, but at one point a storm passed through with a loud crack of thunder.  Every single frog, which to that point had been vociferously calling, immediately went silent.  The effect was enough to make me chuckle.

Life and Death on a Grass Seed

Yesterday afternoon I got bored with sitting at my desk so I grabbed my camera and wandered out into the field behind the office.  I was just about to come back in when something caught my eye.

Female Goldenrod Crab Spider feeding on a beetle while a smaller male spider guards her to deter rival males

That is a beetle (unidentified) being grasped in the jaws of a female Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia).  If you look closely, a smaller male spider is perched on her abdomen.  I am guessing that they had recently mated and the male was hanging around to chase away other male spiders.