A friend and I returned to the same trail at Kickapoo State Park, particularly hoping to come across salamanders in large numbers. We were not disappointed. At a vernal pool that had not been there four days before but obviously the result of two days of rain there were spotted salamanders in large numbers. We did not see them at first but as we stood still and shone our flashlights around we eventually began seeing them. The wood frogs and spring peepers, of course, were obvious by their calls, but the more we stood with our flashlights on, the more the wood frogs seemed to gather around us. Only later did we also begin to find silvery salamanders around the edges of the pool. All-in-all a very cool night, rain, wet feet and all...

I knew of the vernal pools where the silvery salamanders breed-- the only known location for them in Illinois, but hadn't gotten there yet. When a friend mentioned he had seen wood frogs there as well, I knew I would have to go. I got there Friday night 3/6/09 with my 10-year-old son with little time to spare before sunset, so didn't get to do much exploration. We located the first pool and were pleased to hear spring peepers and western chorus frogs*, but were disappointed not to hear any wood frogs. We continued on hoping to find salamanders in the area and circled back past the other pool closer to sunset. There we heard the same two species again and also possibly a couple of tentative calls from a plains leopard frog. As we proceeded back towards the first pool there was definitely an added ingredient to the evening ensemble-- a large number of wood frogs had joined in the concert and though their calls are no match for the piercing and at full chorus near-deafening calls of the spring peepers, the wood frogs were definitely making their presence known. After taking a couple of recordings, we proceeded to make our way around the now dark pond to see if we could spot any of the frogs. At first we were having a hard time but soon we were seeing them left and right -- both spring peepers and wood frogs (never did spot any w. chorus frogs, but by the sounds of it, they were not out in the large numbers that the others were in any case). The frogs were so intent on attracting mates they largely ignored us when we approached them and shined our flashlights on them to get their pictures. In most cases the peepers didn't even stop calling. A couple of wood frogs emitted their calls sporadically despite our flashlights on them and one of the wood frog pictures in the associated observations shows one with inflated vocal sacks, though he seems to have his head underwater. The peepers called from perches out of the water, as seen in their pictures, the wood frogs called while floating in the water. Great night out with my son!

*After listening to the recordings I made on site, I have concluded there were no W. Chorus frogs-- there are some funny "trilled" peeps from some of the peepers, but no W. Chorus frogs. Here is a link to my Frog Blog entry on this complete with audio recordings both before and after sunset. The one before has peepers that sound a bit like chorus frogs: http://frogblogci.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html#185139281469031198