Mike Powell

Last Wednesday I went on a hike in Prince William Forest Park, a National Park Service site in nearby Triangle, Virginia. Unlike the coastal plains and marshes where I spent a lot of my time in nature, Prince William Forest Park, as its name suggests, is a forested area that is full of hills and valleys with numerous creeks.

One of the highlights of my hike was seeing my first Eastern Cricket Frogs (Acris crepitans crepitans) of the season. Cricket frogs of the genus Acris are quite small (about one inch (25 mm) in length) and I often spot them at the edge of the creeks in the park. On this occasion I spotted the frog when it hopped right in front of me, though most often I hear the frogs before I see them. Cricket frogs have a distinctive call that sounds like two pebbles being clicked against each other—some scientist thought it sounded like a cricket, which accounts for the common name for the species .

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.