Newbie from GA with first question!

[avonfromjan]

I have had a very small pond in my front year for about 10 years with no signs of frogs. Last year we build a bigger pond in our back yard and just 4 days after our grand opening we mysteriously had our first frog and within weeks we had about half a dozen. They are probably eastern tree frogs from my research. By the end of the summer they had populated enough that they took up residence at my neighbors pond down the street who had years previously dug a hole and put a swimming pool in the ground (without any pump)'

This year as the pond started coming back to life so did the frogs. The started croaking late in the afternoon to late at night at both mine and my neighbors ponds. Then suddenly about 2 weeks ago my frogs quick croaking, but my neighbors are still croaking each night. I can see several frogs around my pond because as I approach the pond they will make a dash in the water and boy one of them is huge and then there are several smaller ones.

The only thing I can possibly think of is I purchased some pine straw from Home Depot to put around my azaleas which I have surrounding the out perimeter of the pond. I removed all the pine straw today and haven't heard anything while my neighbors down the street are singing away. I understand frogs don't like snakes and I wonder if any might have been in the pine straw bales, but I haven't seen any. Anybody got any ideas!
Thanks!
Jan

[Cliygh and Mia 2]

Possibly there are more females than males where you are. Either that or the males got their job done, which could explain the smaller ones hopping around

[avonfromjan]

Thanks Xavier,
We almost live in the same neck of the woods as I am in Marietta, GA.

One of the frogs I had last year has a very distinctive sound and now I am hearing it down at my neighbors. Is there a way to tell if a frog is a male or female?

Another difference that I am noticing is that frogs use to croak to way late in the night and on some nights down at my neighbors they still do, but last night around 10:00 it's as if thou someone turned them off and it was silent the rest of the night.

[avonfromjan]

Late this evening we kept hearing a strange noise in our backyard around the pond. I just went out in the dark with a flashlight and I saw what I think to be a female (mother)? in the water resting on lily pad. I researched last night and found out the females are pretty big and this frog seems to be around 3 inches long so that's how I came to that conclusion. On top of the fall there was a baby frog almost an inch big. So I sat in the chair in the dark and for a few minutes when I started hearing that strange noise again right in front of me. So I walked to the side of the pond and sure enough right underneath a rock was a young frog. I sat there and shined the light on the frog and started talking to it and it started trying to croak for a few seconds at a time making a horrible sound. The best way I can describe it is as if he was trying to croak and had streph throat. Do young frogs start out developing their vocals or maybe something has damaged it's vocal ability? I also remember my new next door neighbor (about 50 feet away) a couple of weeks ago sprayed his yard for mosquito's. Do you think that could be the problem that ran the males off? I then got concerned that he might be stuck under that rock and had been croaking for help, but he seem to be wet which indicated that he had been in the water earlier. So I just left nature alone. Anybody got any thoughts?
Jan

[UncleChester]

Males will sometimes wander to different ponds during the breeding season. I once watched a trio of male toads calling every night for a week from the same shallow ephemeral pond. From the utter lack of toad eggs, no females turned up. Eventually they all left, possibly to the much larger swamp about 200ft away that held dozens of males calling every night (which had more competition, but females had definitely been attracted to the larger group).

One of the frogs I had last year has a very distinctive sound and now I am hearing it down at my neighbors. Is there a way to tell if a frog is a male or female?

Depends on the species. Frogs of GA can be found in the following link, including their calls to help you identify them: http://wwknapp.home.mindspring.com/GAFrog.Toad.html

It's also possible you have more than one species at your pond.

.. I sat there and shined the light on the frog and started talking to it and it started trying to croak for a few seconds at a time making a horrible sound. The best way I can describe it is as if he was trying to croak and had streph throat. Do young frogs start out developing their vocals or maybe something has damaged it's vocal ability? I also remember my new next door neighbor (about 50 feet away) a couple of weeks ago sprayed his yard for mosquito's. Do you think that could be the problem that ran the males off? I then got concerned that he might be stuck under that rock and had been croaking for help, but he seem to be wet which indicated that he had been in the water earlier. So I just left nature alone. Anybody got any thoughts?

Young male frogs can sound 'off' until they've fully developed.

[avonfromjan]

Thanks Brian,
It seems because the weather is chilly at night which is unusual for our area that they are all not croaking as much! I have another small pond which isn't in the ground that I haven't been using so I filled it with water just to see if it would attract any more frogs.
Jan