It’s mid-March and the frogs are beginning to stir. As I write this I can hear the scrape of snow shovels on my neighbors’ sidewalks. Last night it got cold enough to freeze a frog so solid you could use it as a paperweight, but despite the wintry weather this is the time of year when frogs come out to play. They announce spring to me when I visit the Somme Woods Forest Preserve very early in the morning at this time of year. The pond next to the lot supports what sounds like a healthy population of chorus frogs. The males make a noise that is usually described as similar to the sound you produce by scraping your thumbnail across the teeth of a comb. Get enough frogs and the sound becomes continuous and seemingiy sourceless, pouring out of the pond like an emanation of springtime.
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The sound of the frogs set me wondering about what other herpetiles might be lurking in the weeds and waters at Somme. Herpetiles–or simply “herps”–is the general term used to describe amphibians and reptiles. The word is Greek and means “creeping.”
Aside from the sound of those chorus frogs, my only other herpetological observation at Somme was of a smooth green snake that had recently been sent to its eternal reward by a grackle. But Somme Woods is one of the sites along the North Branch of the Chicago River that is being restored by the North Branch Prairie Project. As such, it is rapidly becoming one of the most studied pieces of ground in North America.
The biggest blue-spotted ever captured was six and a quarter inches long, and many adults may be no more than four inches long, so they are easily overlooked even when they come out in the open. They eat earthworms and other soil-dwelling creatures.
The snakes of Somme are all small, inoffensive creatures. The smooth green snake is a true prairie species in this part of its range, and it has suffered greatly from the destruction of the Illinois prairies. It is a beautiful little snake. Its bright green coloration is almost iridescent.
Garter snakes get big enough to catch and eat small frogs, but for the most part all of these snakes eat insects, spiders, and other small invertebrates.
