If you have looked around on this blog or any of my social media sites, you will know that I love frogs. And of all the frogs we have around here, my absolute favorites are the green tree frogs. They are absolutely adorable, and incredibly efficient pest controllers. One little tree frog will literally eat pounds of insects during a single summer! They are also completely and totally harmless to anything else except insects, so what’s not to love, right???

Early spring in north central Florida is kind of an odd time. The weather can fluctuate tremendously from day to day. One day the high will be in the eighties and everyone will be out in shorts and shirt sleeves. Then we‘ll get a bunch of rain, and highs will be in the fifties or low sixties. Then it’s back to sweats and jeans. As confusing as that can be for people, it’s got to be even harder for some of the wildlife, especially the reptiles and amphibians. Reptiles and amphibians are “cold blooded”, so their body temperatures (and basically their whole metabolisms) depend on the environmental temperature. So when things start to warm up we start to see them moving around and doing things, then it gets cool again and they disappear.

A couple of weeks ago on one of those warm nights (almost warm enough to consider running the A/C, believe it or not), I went out to put up and feed the dogs, and I spotted the first tree frog of the year. It was on the glass window of my front door, using the light from inside the house to attract bugs to feed on. There weren’t a lot of insects yet, but the little frog was effectively catching quite a few of the ones that were attracted by the light. I’ve been watching things turning green, flowers opening, and leaves popping out as signs that spring is really here, but spotting the first tree frog was the best sign yet!

Before long, as the days continue to get longer and warmer, breeding season will be starting. It’s easy to tell when that happens if you have a number of tree frogs in your area because the males have a very distinct “barking” type call that they use to attract females. It differs notably from their other calls, and sometimes if you sit quietly outside at night, you will hear it all around you. Breeding seems to require not only lengthening days and warm temperatures, but also rainfall. After a rain on a warm spring night the woods will literally be hopping with little frogs searching for mates and for food. The weather is still a little inconsistent yet for breeding to start, but it won’t be much longer. I look forward to being able to listen to their calls, and to watch the tadpoles in the ponds as they grow into frogs.