April 24, 2011 - Trilling Time
Welcome to the Nature Notebook.

Do you sing in the shower? If so, you’re not alone. April showers might bring May flowers but they also bring out singers. Coaxed from their woodland hidey-holes by warm spring rains, American toads make their way to breeding ponds. If temperatures are warm enough male toads begin to sing. They do so by inflating their throat pouch and issuing forth a long, pleasant trill. Many people mistake this for a cricket call but crickets are not out until summer. Male toads use this trilling call to attract a mate. Spring breeding season is somewhat dependent on temperature but usually peaks during April in our area. Although toads don’t dance, you just might hear an amphibian Gene Kelly “singing in the rain” on an April night.

This is PPL's naturalist, Jon Beam, with the Nature Notebook for WVIA.