Park program to make big noise

Be it the croak of a frog or the twill of a toad, it's hard to drive anywhere with the car windows down nowadays without hearing the call of some amphibious creature.\nBloomington Parks and Recreation is sponsoring "Frogs and Dogs," a nature program offering participants a chance to identify frogs by sound and sight as well as try to catch some on their own April 16 and 17.\n"But best of all," said naturalist instructor Skitz Evrard, who is leading the program for the second year in a row, "we're going to roast hotdogs over an open fire and have a treat a frog would love for dessert."\nEvrard has many activities planned so far to help participants learn about frogs and get to know what's going on in the world around them. She plans to bring 35 mm picture slides and recordings of frog sounds. She also plans to bring live frogs and toads as well as their eggs. There will be an exploration time when participants will use the nets provided to try to catch frogs in the stream at Lower Cascades Park. \nEvrard said during this time of year, frogs are really concentrated around wetlands for their mating season. They need to lay their eggs before the pools of spring rain dry up.\n"It's spring fever for amphibians right now," she said.\nIn Indiana, about six to seven species of frogs call and two species of toads call, Evrard said. "Calling" is the name for the noises they produce from a vocal sac under their mouth that acts as a huge chamber for acoustics.\n"You can hear it for up to a mile," Evrard said.\nShe said male frogs call for four reasons: to establish territory, to attract females for mating, to warn others or free themselves from predators or to let other frogs know they don't want to mate with them. \nVicky Meretsky, an associate professor of conservation biology at IU, is currently working with students who are monitoring frog populations at two nearby wetland areas. She said bullfrogs, leopard frogs and spring peepers are the most common types of frogs in Indiana. Most breed between late March and June, she said, so during that time, there is always some kind of frogs calling. The sounds have many connotations for different people.\n"Spring peepers are the sound of spring for many people. The evening choruses of thousands of them together sound a bit like distant silvery bells," she said. "Bullfrogs are the sound of approaching summer." \nFrogs can also be useful to humans because they provide an early warning system for environmental damage. Meretsky said due to their life history, a frog spends part of its life in the water, as an egg and tadpole, and part of its life on land. Since their skin readily absorbs chemicals, if chemicals are building up on land or in the water, they are among the first to be affected. \nBecky Barrick, the parks and recreation community events manager, said the purpose of the program is to provide both education and recreation and give participants a chance to have fun outdoors. \n"It's also a good chance to experience one of the parks in the Bloomington park system that people may never have been to before," she said. \n"Frogs and Dogs" is part of a larger series of programs called "Great Outdoors," which holds two outdoor programs a month. The next program, scheduled for April 25, is "Spring Poppers," all about wildflowers. Summer programs include night hikes, fishing programs and woods survival. \nThis year, "Frogs and Dogs" is back by popular demand. \n"We get a lot of input from residents to see what programs they want to see," Barrick said.\n"Frogs and Dogs" is being held at the north shelter in Lower Cascades Park from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. April 16 and from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. April 17. The cost of the program is $5 and pre-registration is required by April 12. \n-- Contact staff writer Hannah Schroeder at schrode@indiana.edu.