Good morning!
It’s Saturday, and I invite you to stand on the porch with me and listen to the most glorious, joyful sound in Maine at the moment. It is the sound of the spring peepers, or pseudacris crucifer, which have finally come back to life after their long winter freeze.
What are these “peepers” exactly? They are frogs. Very musical frogs. Their song begins at dusk and sounds rather like sleigh bells from deep in the woods. Its the male peepers singing their hearts out in the hopes of finding true love. For several weeks, this will be our evening soundtrack. You’ll also hear some deeper clucks and blurps of other frogs that can’t resist joining in the chorus.
“They heard and felt the breath of spring, and they stirred with new life and hope. There was a good, new smell in the air, a smell of earth waking after its long sleep.”
—E. B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan
Onwards,
Clara
April 15, 2023