Mitchell Jones, PhD student, University of Maine
Last winter was my first Maine winter and it was certainly quite the introduction. Growing up in Virginia we still talk about the big storm when I was a kid that left us with 2-3 feet of snow that melted within a few weeks. Last winter in Maine no one talked about a snow storm that didn’t leave more than a foot of snow. After shoveling out our driveway all winter, tossing snow over banks higher than my shoulder, my wife and I got ourselves a snow blower. This winter, it has sat almost entirely unused in the garage. To say it has been mild would be an understatement. We have had a few cold snaps and snow falls but most mornings the water in our chicken coop hasn’t frozen.
Photo Credit Nature North
All this to say, for those of us in the business of tracking the migrations of wood frogs to and from their breeding pools, we get a bit anxious. Wood frogs freeze solid every winter in hibernacula (shallow burrows, cracks or crevices in rocks or under the leaf litter). They thaw and that’s when the movement begins. When it happens every year is dependent on local climates. Southern wood frogs thaw sooner than northern wood frogs but in a given place, say Bangor, Maine, we expect them to thaw and head to the breeding pools sometime in mid-April. The question I began asking as I hurried to get all the permitting submitted, plans for the field season solidified, and equipment ordered was what happens when Fall seems to fade directly into Spring?
We are lucky as we have southern colleagues who can alert us when they hear the telltale barking of male wood frogs. Before the last storm that hit the east coast we got word of one lone male calling from a pool in Connecticut. Luckily for us, maybe not so lucky for him the storm came and with it some cold weather. It does make me wonder how many other frogs had emerged, if they do emerge and get too their breeding pool what happens when it snows again, how many time can a single frog freeze in one season and survive. I was reminded that we have had warm winters before and we still have wood frogs but as our seasons seem to get less predictable, how will that impact our little frozen friends?