With the temperature in the 20’s (-5 C) the last few days, it’s hard to remember that we had record-breaking temperatures less than a week ago, when temperatures soared to 72 degrees (22 C).
During a trip to my marsh on one of the warm days last Saturday, I was a little shocked to see some frogs out of the water, which not long before had been covered with a thin sheet of ice. I thought they would be in a hibernation state by now. The frogs were in the reeds and the ones that I could see were Southern Leopard frogs (Lithobates sphenocephalus), like the one in this photo.
I figured that frogs buried themselves completely in the mud like turtles do, but was surprised to learn that is not the case. According to an article in Scientific American, aquatic frogs, like the leopard frog, do hibernate underwater, but they would suffocate if buried in the mud. Instead they remain on top of the mud or only partially buried.
In addition to the frogs, a lot of small turtles took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and could be seen sunning themselves on logs in the marsh. Unfortunately, there were no cameo appearances by dragonflies—my fellow photographer and blogger Walter Sanford and I searched diligently for Autumn Meadowhawk dragonflies, which we had seen earlier in December, but we came up empty-handed.
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Mike Powell 