The call of the Florida gopher frog

It had rained, poured, rained, then misted all day and Jake wanted to see a Florida gopher frog - badly. So badly that he swore that if I would just get him to where they were chorusing he WOULD NOT come back to the car without a picture.

We visited and failed at some of my "tried and true" ponds the night before, so I prevailed on Paul Moler's better nature to provide the locale of a new pond. Thanks again, Paul!

Jake and I headed west and for nearly the entire hour's drive the conversation varied from his headache (he got a lot of sympathy for that!) to how the next gopher frog he heard would not evade his camera.

When we arrived it was almost dark. It was windy and cool. No gophers were singing. Finally after an hour's delay, I decided to walk down to the pond just to take a better listen. Jake accompanied me. Guess what! A few gophers WERE singing. We got to the water and I said something to the effect of "they're here, they're singing, go get 'em Jake." His response was "Um - I forgot my camera."

By now the frogs were actually calling loudly so I told Jake to go and at least find one so he could add it to his life list. He went. I stood and shivered. Jake got a quarter of the way across the pond and the frogs stopped singing. Jake stood. One frog called. Jake, sounding like a distraught porcupine, answered. Lo, the frog answered Jake who was again stalking s-l-o-w-l-y towards the calling site.

Then, as if a curtain had been lifted, the cloud cover dissipated. Within minutes stars twinkled overhead. Moonlight glinted brightly from the water's wind-rippled surface. Ranid calls ceased. Except for cricket frogs and the whistling of strengthening breezes there was almost absolute silence. It was time to acknowledge that the gophers had won this round. But there would be a next time and we would be ready.

Now, if we could only find the path back to the car.

The vocal sacs of this chorusing Florida gopher frog are apparent. Adult Florida gopher frogs from the Lake Wales Ridge are smaller than those of many other populations.

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.