WOODS, WATERS, AND WILDLIFE
Nature’s rainmaker T he gray treefrog’s call, heard all over the state, is a sure sign of damp weather. S TORY AND PHOTOS BY W.H. “CHIP” GROSS
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ven if you didn’t quite recognize it, you’ve likely heard the sound. Just before or after a summer rain shower, a loud, short trill — just 1 to 3 seconds long — emanates from a nearby tree. Was it a bird? It may have sounded something like a red-bellied or red-headed woodpecker. In reality, it’s a gray treefrog, making one of the most distinctive sounds of summer. Why do gray treefrog calls usually coincide with rainfall? “As an amphibian, gray treefrogs need to maintain their moist skin to survive,” says Greg Lipps, a member of Malinta-based Tricounty Rural Electric Cooperative, who is also the amphibian and reptile conservation coordinator at Ohio State University. “Rainfall fulfills that moisturizing requirement for the frogs, so precipitation often spurs activity, such as calling and breeding.”
12 OHIO COOPERATIVE LIVING • JULY 2021
Some gray treefrogs also call outside of the breeding season — generally April through June in Ohio — but why they do so is a mystery. “It isn’t uncommon to hear a male calling from high in the trees in late summer or early fall,” Lipps says. Measuring no more than 2 inches long, the gray treefrog is the largest treefrog in the northern United States; it’s found throughout Ohio. Mainly arboreal, the frogs come down out of the trees during breeding season, congregating in vernal pools. “Those temporary spring pools, swamp forests, the margins of ponds and lakes, flooded agricultural fields, and even water-filled tire ruts are all used for egg deposition,” says Lipps. “In general, the main requirements are that the water is not flowing and
