With several inches of snow having fallen outside, and winter birds clamoring around our feeders — I wanted to answer a question some of you may be wondering about — or maybe haven’t given much thought to at all: where did the bullfrogs go?
That deep bellows of the bullfrogs that filled summer nights haven’t vanished; their vocalists are simply submerged beneath eye level.
American Bullfrogs don’t migrate or hibernate on land, nor can they pack a suitcase and take a flight to Florida. So, as temperatures drop, they slip beneath the surface of ponds and wetlands, settling into mud or resting quietly on the bottom. Their metabolism slows, and they absorb oxygen directly through their skin, allowing them to survive for months beneath the ice.
They won’t eat. They won’t call. They’ll barely move.
When spring sunlight finally warms the water, bullfrogs will rise again — same ponds, same banks — ready to reclaim their territory with booming, bellowing groans.
And so, while I trudge around the icy edges of winter wetlands in search of winter birds, I pause and think of the Bullfrogs beneath the ice. I also find myself wondering, if like so many of us, they look forward to warmer days ahead.
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