The weather has been unusually warm for weeks now, it's only the end of February and today I heard the two sounds that have signaled the beginning of spring my entire life; the song of a red winged blackbird and the call of a spring peeper.
I can’t remember a time when red winged blackbirds have returned so early. It’s important to be the first to return to acquire territory. Without land ownership you don’t reserve the privilege to breed and perpetuate your kind. They are singing loudly and flashing their bright red shoulder badges in an attempt to lure in a potential mate. I saw no females, so it must be for the benefit of other males in the area. The song is saying; here I am. This place is mine. The females require a lot from males, not only must they be owners of prime real-estate where food and good nesting sites are plentiful, they must be extremely healthy. The only requirement for females is that they be fertile. This stems from the fact that sperm is cheap and eggs expensive. Her investment in offspring is much greater than his initially, so she needs to be sure he’s got the goods. Not much different than a woman letting a man pay for a dinner date.
A full month before the equinox males have come to set up housekeeping. These must be older more experienced birds. They take a great chance coming back so early as often the weather will change locking in a cold spell for several weeks sometimes with a layer of snow covering an already limited food supply. If this happens many here now, will not be here when the females arrive. They will have gambled and lost. This is an opportunity for the younger less experienced males who come later and have a chance to move into recently vacated territory.
The scattered few spring peepers I’ve heard when driving by a wet area have not been enough to gather a chorus yet. We live in the woods with no standing water nearby, so they aren’t something I get to hear on a regular basis in the spring anymore. When we lived in marshy areas in Ontario these tiny frogs were the first songs of spring. It’s the music we anticipated all winter long. They at least still seem to be plentiful. What worked for amphibians for millions of years doesn’t seem to be working any longer.
These soft naked animals are so vulnerable to changes in the environment. Since the 1980’s over 170 amphibian species have gone extinct. About 2,500 of the world’s 6,000 species are suffering declines. With 2,000 of those formally assessed as threatened. Climate changes that are warming, drying and otherwise altering their habitats, chemical pesticides, metals, and estrogens in human wastewater disrupt their sex hormones. Atrazine, is perhaps the most commonly used herbicide in the world, and seems to interfere with tadpoles becoming adults and convert testosterone to estrogen, also disrupting sexual development.
When the weather has sufficiently warmed great numbers of these tiny frogs come together by the tens of thousands creating an aria so loud it drowns out everything else. But when you approach the chorus goes silent. I remember going out one night with a flashlight determined to see one of these tiny troubadours. I waded into the marshy muck and shone my light in the direction of the sound only to have the areas that my light touched go silent. Eventually, they couldn’t handle not being part of the singing multitude. One by one they would start up again. Just a few here and there, tentative at first, they couldn’t stand being quiet. A tiny little being as small as the tip of my finger becoming twice its size when his throat ballooned out in song was between my boots, impossibly loud for its size, desperate to be heard and part of this springtime celebration and orgy.
We don’t know what the weather will do in March. It is concerning. Our fruit trees are already budding with flowers, lilies, daffodils and irises are coming forth, and red maples are budding. And that’s up here in the mountains. Down below spring is even further advanced. It’s hard not to want spring to come, even after such a mild winter we want to welcome her.
Lovely.
Another great one, Robert