The Grays are Back!

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:07]Nature Here and Now. How you doing? I'm Chris Ignado. You're watching Nature Here and Now. I'm sorry about the lighting, but you know, it is what it is. I'm in the middle of a forest/wetlands.

[00:00:18]And behind me is the chorus of hundreds of frogs, predominantly the gray tree frogs. But if you listen closely, you can hear some spring peepers dotted about and the occasional green frog.

[00:00:35]>> I don't know if you heard it, but that one in the background was a a bullfrog.

[00:00:39]And in another month or two, the bullfrogs and the green frogs will be the almost the only amphibian you hear around here. You can hear the green frogs, too. But early spring, you've got the wood frogs followed by the spring peepers. Spring peeper's gone for a month or two, but around here, May and early June, is dominated by the gray tree frogs. Let's go have a look at these.

[00:01:15]Okay, so you may have noticed a little patch of yellow on the inside of the rear legs, right? Well, it's pretty obvious. Think about it. Let's say you're a predator. You hear that sound, you start looking around for the food.

[00:01:26]You know that in this wetlands there's always something to eat, right? So, you're hunting around. You hear the sound and you start moving in. You get closer and closer. And then you start looking around. Eventually, you spot some movement. You're like, "Okay, the thing's pretty hard to see. It blends in pretty good." But every time it does a call, you see it kind of vibrate. You you get a little closer and the thing hops, but just as it jumps, you see this flash of yellow and you stop and give pause for a second.

[00:01:58]Usually in the world of nature, yellow or bright apple sematic coloration, which is bright colors mixed with dark colors. That usually means that something is either venomous, poisonous, or it tastes really bad or smells terrible. In this case, these frogs taste a little bad. They can make you sick to your stomach. So, they're a little bit poisonous. That flash of yellow not only startles and surprises the predator like whoa, what was that about? But it also warns them, hey, you probably don't want to eat me. So, these frogs have uh multiple defenses. They blend in. They got incredible camouflage. They can hop away. And they got that bright apple coloration on the back leg.

[00:02:38]So, of course, these frogs like the the wetlands, especially, you know, wetlands that have trees and shrubs surrounding or dotted amongst the water. Nice thick branches and sometimes cedar and other, you know, maybe hemlock trees. Um, they like those those trunks to rest on and roost while they're doing their call.

[00:02:59]But they will be found on the ground also just singing away. They're pretty hard to see when they're on the ground.

[00:03:04]Again, they blend in. And if they were just in the water, they're going to be like this grayish brown color because they're all damp. But the camouflage on these frogs is incredible because it can change. They could be this bright, you know, light gray with patches on it. It looks a lot like Leica patches on it. It looks a lot like Lykan. Um or they could be kind of brown or a dark gray, especially if they're upset and they blend right in. But I've seen them in good moods singing away and they're still dark. But I love those green patches on their back because they're often outlined in in black. And like I said, it looks very much like Lykan.

[00:03:42]Like most frogs, these amphibians feed on, you know, insect diets, especially mods, cuz they're flying around these wetlands. You got mosquitoes and apids walking up the the trunk of or stems of the plants, and uh they'll just capitalize on anything. But when the heat is on and it's fullblown breeding season, that's their main focus.

[00:04:03]Like almost all amphibians, these frogs need water to lay their eggs in. You know, they fit tons ton tons of eggs within their bodies, except those eggs don't have any water in them yet. They can actually absorb, I think it's up to seven or 800 times their volume in water once they're laid into the water. And that applies to pretty much all the frogs and toads around here. Um, but of course they lay their eggs in the water and eventually, you know, in a few weeks actually, the eggs will hatch and you'll have tons of tadpoles, which of course are frog larva. I like to say that. I never get to listen.

[00:04:43]That's a spring peeper over and over. Sounds like it's laughing or intimidated.

[00:04:51]What if it's going no? Um, but yeah, that's the odd spring peeper in the background. But there's two of them here that are making that laughing sound instead of their regular creeping that they do.

[00:05:03]Green frog, bullfrog, great tree frogs, spring peepers. They not love places like this late at night. The reason I came out here tonight wasn't even for these frogs. I'm actually trying to get some astrophotography photos of the pin wheelel galaxy and maybe the M3 star cluster and stuff like that. I'm going to be doing videos about that at some point relatively soon, I hope. And if you're interested, you know, let me know in the comments. If not, I'm still going to do it. But, uh, yeah, these frogs are so fun. Um, if you like this video, if you like learning about things like these frogs back here, I've got a whole playlist of frog and toad videos that I've gone out in a field like this and filmed them. And of course, other amphibians like salamanders.

[00:05:50]I love frogs and salamanders. They're just so fun to observe and watch. And how do you not love things with big bubbly eyes on their heads? That could be weird, though. Anyways, thanks a lot for watching. I'm Chris Ignado. If you haven't already, definitely subscribe to my channel so that you can see more videos like this one. Helps me to get out here in places like this. See you later.