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The April night was cold and rainy, perfect for the Millers' annual spring peeper hunt. We started this tradition when Shark and Seed were small, and they have perpetuated it with their children.
Shark and her boys, Lamppost Head and The 747, drove to our house so I could ride with them on this year's hunt. The boys each had a flashlight; I had a headlamp.
The main catch, as usual, was toads, and they had almost more than they wanted before the hunt was officially underway. There were so many toads on our long brick driveway that they constantly had to stop and pick them up to keep from running over them.
Among this first group of toads was a mating pair that Lamppost Head picked up. The little male had his forelegs locked tightly on the back of a female twice his size.
"Look, a mommy toad and her child," said Lamppost Head, showing them to his mother as he climbed back into the van.
Shark laughed. "They're mating," she said. "Don't you remember? We just talked about that."
They boys should have remembered mating toads from previous spring hunts. Put toads together in a big glass jar and the little males, not in the least distracted by having been captured, will climb onto the back of a big, fat female and clamp on with an iron grip.
The 747 was puzzled that clamping on seemed to be the end of the action. "Is that all they do? Just sit there?" he asked.
"Pretty much," said Shark.
THE REASON toads and frogs are so easy to catch on rainy spring nights is that instinct tells the males to crawl atop a rock and sing to attract a female. Unfortunately, every driveway, road and highway looks to them like a big rock. They get squished in uncountable numbers.
On lonely country roads, especially near wetlands or creeks, we let the kids walk ahead of the cars and look for frogs and toads in the headlights. Peepers, though they live in wetlands, are tree frogs. Brown with a darker "X" on their backs, and half as long as your little finger, they are not easy to spot. Quick and slippery, they aren't easy to catch, either, but were slower this night because of the cold.
Saving their lives is one reason we go on our yearly hunt, but mostly it's fun to catch them.
As we headed down Gas Valley Road we reached our limit on toads, plus our first peeper and a wood frog, a handsome brown frog with a dark robber's mask. Peepers are tiny and fragile, but usually climb the sides of the jar, staying out from under the much heavier toads.
Shark practiced "toad slalom" driving as we headed down Ferndale Road, and I made up a song about being a toad and longing for a big, fat lady toad.
Ferndale is a county road that winds down into the Ohio Valley near the backwaters of Tomlinson Run, crossing a swamp as it joins State Route 2. It is our traditional peeper hunting ground. The shrill trilling of many hundreds of spring peepers is almost deafening near the swamp.
SEED AND HIS YOUNGEST, The Favorite, were supposed to go with us. It was Seed who noted the perfect conditions and proposed this night for the hunt.
At the last minute we learned they weren't coming after all. The Favorite was on house arrest because of chores not done.
Shark's boys had caught half a dozen peepers and another wood frog by the time we reached the bottom of Ferndale. We saw a squished pickerel frog but partial frogs don't count in the catch. Pickerels are greenish frogs similar to leopard frogs, but their spots are more square than round.
We turned around to go home, and as we headed back up Ferndale we encountered another slow-moving car coming down the hill, with a red-headed boy walking ahead of it in the rain. The Favorite had gotten a last-minute reprieve.
He and Seed had come down the same roads just minutes behind us, and had a bigger haul than ours, including two wood frogs, two green frogs and a beautiful white-speckled black salamander, unfairly named "slimy salamander."
We all headed back home to show Grandma Honey what the boys had caught.
Two of our cats were especially interested in the occupants of the jar, circling it and pawing at the glass.
The boys had their pictures taken, each holding a slippery creature, before taking all outside and letting them go.
There nearly was one casualty: Shark's boys let one toad get away inside the van and couldn't find it. Two days later it hopped out from under a seat, unharmed. Toads are tough.