Wood Frog Photography (Amphibian Breeding Event 2025)

 

Ive been taking a long break from photography lately, Mostly because ive been hyper-focusing on bodybuilding, forcing me to de-prioritize my photography, as I have the kind of personality where I want to either put 100% into something, or not do it at all. Wildlife photography, at the level I had been doing it last Spring, takes an enormous amount of effort, as well as gas money. The number one variable, in my experience, that determines how successful I am at photography, is time spent in the feild.

Another reason was the end of my Instagram account, which had just reached 800 followers, and had taken a ton of effort to grow to that size, over the course of 2 years. In January, I clicked on a link, sent from the account of an old friend, and stupidly shared my insta login to the linked website. A Nigerian hacker took control of my account and deleted all my photos, changing my password, so that I would have no way to get back into it. Finally, in March, I created a new account, reluctantly starting from scratch.

One of the first locations, which I knew would reliably produce good photo opportunities, was the vernal pool, called "Nuppse Pond" on google maps. On the 17th, Conditions were perfect. Everything was drenched after a steamy, drizzly night, and the temperature was in the high 50s. I approached the vernal pool. Besides the occasional squeak of a spring peeper, it was silent. This baffled me. I thought how could this not be the day? Frustrated, I lifted up a rotten log, hoping for a clue as to what was going on, or for the possibility of any species of amphibian. I immediately noticed a pair of wood frogs, one of each sex. Both frogs seemed almost crumpled up, resembling their "cold state" (wood frogs freeze solid as they hibernate over the winter)

"cold state" female frog. (bottom of the top right quadrant)

These two frogs had clearly only recently unfroze. I can only speculate at how they ended up hibernating so close to the vernal pool. My guess is that they had migrated during rains in early march, but the conditions weren't good enough for breeding to begin, and as temperatures plummeted again, they went back into the cold state. Upon exposure to the warm, humid air, they became animated over the course of about 5 minutes, and started hopping across the muddy slope, towards the vernal pool...

The female had a gorgeous orange coloration, so I used her as a subject for a few photos, literally wading on all fours, to get as close to her eye level as possible...

I then found a red eft, a life stage of the eastern newt...

And a spotted salamander...

I ventured over to another vernal pool, which was booming with the quacks of wood frogs, and the peeps of spring peepers...

and another pond, which was smaller but equally loud...

By now it was getting dark, and it was starting to drizzle again. I made my way back to the car, stopping by Nuppse pond on my route. The rain had seemingly activated the previously silent frogs. The pond was even louder now than the previous two. I spotted movement along the steep bank of the pond, as new frogs arrived to the party. I took 1 final video of the pond before I left...