spring peeper on floating old oak leaf singing with puffed out throat by cinnamon325 on iNaturalist

Spring Peeper

Spring Peeper is one of Kingston's more-than-human neighbours. In winter their heart stops. Their liver floods their blood with glucose and ice forms between their cells. In spring they thaw. These kin cards are an invitation to get to know them: who they live in relation with, their gifts, and what they're asking of us.

Spring Peeper kin card

Spring Peeper breeds in shallow, temporary, fishless woodland ponds, attaching 800 to 1,000 eggs to underwater stems. Wood Frog breeds in the same vernal ponds, calling with duck-like quacks a week or two before Spring Peeper's high peeps. Blue-spotted Salamander migrates to the same ponds on warm rainy nights. In summer, Spring Peeper hunts beetles, ants, flies, ticks, and spiders in leaf litter and low vegetation.

Spring Peeper at the planning table

What sustains Spring Peeper, what they give to this place, what threatens them, and what a workable Biodiversity Action Plan looks like from where they stand. This season, this decade, this century.

Get to know Spring Peeper Return through the seasons. Record what you observe on iNaturalist.

Notice: On the first late March evening above 8°C, stand near a vernal woodland pond and listen for hundreds of sharp peep, rising slightly, repeating once a second. On warm days in September and October, listen for a single voice calling intermittently from the leaf litter.

Act: Leave the leaves for Spring Peeper to hibernate under in winter and to hunt for insects in summer. Create a pocket wetland and damp, shady shelters using rocks and rotting logs. Stop using road salt. Speak up for vernal ponds, they're unmapped and unprotected.

Kingston is drafting a Biodiversity Action Plan. Pin a place that matters to Spring Peeper.

Get involved: Little Forests Kingston is growing. We're looking for people who want to build relationships with the land and tend them over time. Forest Stewards, Neighbourhood Weavers, Community Scientists, Seed Keepers and more. You don't need to arrive knowing everything. Do any of these roles call to you?