If you don't know, I am a nature enthusiast.
Come the raining season in California, when the ground is soggy beneath your feet, the night is suddenly punctuated by a sound much like crickets in the rest of the country. But instead of crickets' chirping, it is a loud chorus of frog ribbits.
At night, by any rainy season waterway, comes hundred of deep ribbits from frogs rarely ever seen. These little guys, about the size of a half dollar but sounding like they are the size of a bowling ball, spend nearly the entire year hibernating deep in the mud. When the rain comes, they emerge and the men, being men, get right down to the business of advertising their virility (big surprise), hence ribbiting.
The female frogs, wooed by a particular big, deep voice come to check out the frog.
A little while later, those rainy season waterways become nurseries. (I will now think twice before drinking from rainy season streams.) Tadpoles appear in the water, and soon frogs.
As the rainy season waterways become rainy season mud ways, all signs of frog life disappear. The waterways become dry cracked mud flats until the next season when it starts again.
I have lived by seasonal arroyos for years now. I have only seen a few tadpoles. I have only once seen frogs, yet their song is constant. It is amazing how tiny they are compared to their roaring ribbits.
At night, the hundreds of frogs, in just a small strip of water front, ribbit the evening away, until last call (somewhere around midnight, depending on local waterway ordinances). Then they go quiet until the next afternoon.
This rarely seen, little creature pleases me to no end. The noise, a constant hum, a call for love, seems so happy, true and pure.
I love the little rainy season frogs.
They are very cool.
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