THE FROG THAT SOUNDS LIKE A LAMB

We've been in our house for 9 1/2 years, but in July we started hearing an animal we'd never heard in our yard before. Click the play button on the toolbar above to hear it from both close and far perspectives. We could never find the animal making the sound, even when it was right under our feet, and it's very loud. After some searching on the Internet, I found out it's the sound of the nocturnal Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Frog. Some sources call it a toad, but it's a frog. They're about one inch long, and as you can see they have sort of a triangle shape. Instead of climbing trees or walls like green tree frogs, these frogs burrow into the ground, which is why they are so hard to find. My wife found this one when she was working in the yard one day, and it's still the only one we've seen even though there must be dozens of them in our yard based on the number of calls we hear from every part of the yard. We got a lot of rain in June and July, and that's what triggers breeding with these frogs. They're also a lot more vocal when it's raining. We haven't heard them much this month. Though you can't see it on the frog in this picture, Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Frogs have a fold of skin behind their eyes that protects the eyes from this frog's favorite food -- ants.