Me as a child holding a rough-skinned newt. I didn’t know they were one of the most toxic animals around until I was an adult. Only if you eat them though…
I love all kinds of amphibians and reptiles but especially I love Pacific Chorus Frogs. In Hockinson, where I grew up, we had a small pond full of frogs and newts. When I was a child I would creep up to the pond as quietly and slowly as I could trying not to startle the frogs but eventually one would “plop” in followed by a chorus of “plops” all around the shore as the rest were startled into the water. Then I would nestle down by the skunk cabbage and wait silently, unaware of the passage of time, until, amidst a ring of concentric circles appeared two bulbus eyes above the water. Sometime later another pair of eyes would pop up and then another. Slowly and silently they would swim a bit closer to the shore in small spurts, pausing at length in between. Finally one would put two feet on the muddy edge and then another. How many would come to the shore and turn to face the water watching for little bug snacks before I had to scratch my nose or shift position and the cycle would start all over again?
I learned as a child that it is important to be accepted by frogs.
Pacific Chorus Frogs are one of the jewels of the backyard habitat. A normal sized suburban plot with a well designed habitat garden and a small wildlife pond (no fish!) can support a very good sized breeding population of these delightful friends! Please never transport amphibians to your yard from elsewhere.* If your habitat is suitable they will find your pond, in the meantime it will be a wonderful source of water for birds and other wildlife. *Exceptions may be appropriate if the distance is very near you and a population is about to be destroyed (such as a swimming pool in your neighborhood full of tadpoles and about to be drained or a struggling mass of tadpoles in a rapidly drying ditch close to your home.
Amphibians are extremely sensitive to environmental toxins. If you have the fortune to have Pacific Chorus Frogs in your habitat garden please do all you can to eliminate the use of harmful chemicals.
Pacific Chorus Frogs, also called Pacific Tree Frogs are often heard more than they are seen. You can hear their distinctive ribbit ribbit in abundance around small ponds and lakes in SW Washington. Their call is also often used as the standard frog call in movies! If you listen closely you can distinguish different types of calls, one long kreeekkk reapeated over and over tends to be a male telling a male to find his own pond. The ribbit ribbit is used to call females. Frogs ribbit faster when it is warmer!
Here you can see a male frog inflating his air sac to call to a female in Spring. He claimed an old aquarium tank filled with water as his territory.
Pacific Chorus Frogs have the amazing ability to change their color and patterns, you’ll never see two exactly alike. Below are some of the varied patterns I’ve observed in my own yard. I especially enjoyed the one turning a pale gray to blend in with the siding of my house!
No matter what color or pattern they adopt they always retain a black or dark brown stripe from their nose through their eyes. That’s how you can know for sure you are seeing a Pacific Chorus Frog.
Each one is unique!
Autumn Joy Sedum is not native but I find frogs on the blossoms quite often sunning themselves and munching on the little buzzing creatures that visit the flowers. For this reason I love to keep Autumn Joy in my habitat garden.
They are so good at camouflage and keeping still that I never get tired of the unexpected surprise of coming across a frog while in the garden.
Keep your handling of Pacific Chorus frogs to minimum, especially if you’ve used lotion or hand sanitizer. Sometimes you have to gently move one to keep it out of harms way though!
I have not read that Pacific Chorus frogs change texture (like an octopus) but observationally they do have varied textures. I like how this frog seems to be emulating the shine of the leaves.
The pale color of this frog camouflages very well with this white flower, this frog is using a similar technique to a goldenrod crab spider.
This one seems to be emulating the bumpy pale siding of the home!
Ribbit! The Frog Life Cycle
My main backyard wildlife pond is a 4ft x 2ft x 1ft raised bed converted into a pond by emptying out the soil and placing a pond liner in. It is small but still supports many breeding pairs of Pacific Chorus Frogs every Spring. They lay small clumps of eggs on grasses and twigs that soon develop into tadpoles. The tadpoles develop at varying rates to ensure they emerge all through the Summer as the most tiny and adorable froglets you can imagine, pictures and words cannot do justice to how adorable and tiny these froglets are! Some troubleshooting we’ve done is to fit a piece of sturdy cattle panel over the top to keep racoons from snacking on the froglets but still allow birds, frogs and insects access to the water. We also installed an exterior aerator with an airstone which does an excellent job of keeping the water clearer but is not so vigorous as to deter the frogs (they don’t like fast moving water).