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By Wayne Lynch & Aubrey Lang
It had been raining in southern Alberta for a week. On a hunch, we called Mark
Ambard, the naturalist at Dinosaur Provincial Park. Mark was beside himself with
excitement. The plains spadefoot toads had been calling for a week. Why hadn't
we called sooner? Could we drive down tonight? We had been waiting 20 years for
a chance to meet these "gnomes of the night." It was time to act. In less than
an hour we were on the highway barreling east to the wide-open prairies. Huge,
blue-black thunderheads hung on the horizon where we were headed. It looked as
if we were going to get wet, very wet, or get stuck in slick prairie gumbo.
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These tadpoles were stranded in a shrinking puddle of water, doomed to die. Hot
summer weather can evaporate the small pools where many prairie amphibians
choose to breed. We used existing light and a 200mm macro lens to make the
shot.
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Three and one-half hours, two rainstorms, and an episode of hail later, we were
sliding down the muddy hill that leads into the park. By now it was 7:00 pm and
Mark was there to greet us, butterfly net in hand and grinning with enthusiasm.
We hiked to two different ponds where Mark had heard the toads calling days
earlier, but all we found were clusters of eggs and tiny tadpoles. There was not
a single adult in sight. It looked as if we had missed the show.
Spadefoot toads are explosive prairie breeders. All the adults in an area may
mate and disappear within a few days. The toads are rarely seen again because
they burrow underground and only surface at night. Mark offered us the usual
comforting words. "You should have been here two days ago. The toads were all
around me. I think I got some really good photographs. Would you like some
copies?" Thanks Mark. Be careful you don't get your camera wet, when you fall
into that pond we're about to shove you in.
Disappointed, we accepted Mark's offer for tea before we started the drive back
to Calgary. We were sitting in the kitchen chatting about frogs and toads when
all of us stopped talking at the same time. Through the open window, we could
hear the duck-like scream of a calling spadefoot. Then we heard another, and
another. There was just one problem. The toads were calling from the other side
of the Red Deer River, which was in full spring swell. We didn't hesitate long.
By 10:30 pm, we had located a canoe and the three of us jumped aboard and
paddled for the far shore, just 50 yards away. The toads were calling from a
flooded meadow, flanking the riverbank. In the beam of our spotlight, dozens of
dried cow patties floated in the shallow brown water that leaked over the tops
of our boots. It's magical moments like this that make field photography so
appealing to us.
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Nothing is going to make this male spadefoot release his grip. Because the toads
are so pale, we set the exposure compensation at + 2/3 of a stop.
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Right on cue, the toads stopped calling, and that was it! As we sloshed along,
Mark tried to brighten our spirits. "I guess the mating season is over. Looks
like you might need one of my photos after all." Wayne was quick to respond.
"Oh, so sorry Mark. Did that soggy cow patty I just kicked hit you in the back
of the head?"
Around midnight, we called it quits and started back to the canoe. By then, Mark
had lost both of his sandals in the muck and was following behind when he
screamed. "I've got a pair in amplexus." Coupled toads. Just what we wanted,
and there they were locked together closer than high school lovers. The next 30
minutes were a blur. We photographed the spadefoots (Or should that be
spadefeet?) from every angle possible. We even broke off a piece of cow patty
and wedged it under the toads to raise their bodies higher in the water. The
toads didn't care. Tonight was their night, and nothing was going to dampen
their ardor. And so ended another fun-filled photo day in the world of Lynch and
Lang.
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Normally breeding boreal toads hide during the day to avoid the guild of
predators that eat them, including mink, bears, red foxes, owls, ravens, and
gulls. In this same pond, we watched a belted kingfisher catch and eat two
toads. We used existing light, Velvia film, and a 300mm lens with two extension
tubes to get this close-up. We loved the toad's color and texture.
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If the above adventure is your idea of springtime fun, then read on and we will
try to give you the do's and don'ts of photographing croakers and peepers. The
hardest part of photographing the mating spadefoots was to find them in the
first place. This is a common problem in frog and toad photography. Each species
has its own timetable to breed, and a preferred location where it likes to do
it. For example, it was the last week of May when we found the spadefoots. By
then, most of the ten other amphibian species in Alberta had finished. If we had
wanted wood frogs, we were a month late. If it had been boreal toads we were
after, we were 200 miles west of the closest ones. As it is with every animal,
the first step in photographing croakers and peepers is knowledge. Get yourself
a good regional book on the amphibians in your area. Then buy a cassette of frog
calls so you can identify what you are hearing, or hope to hear. Local experts
are another good source of information. Many species of amphibians have declined
in North America. As a result, many regional wildlife departments now employ a
herpetologist (usually designated as a non-game biologist) whose job it is to
monitor and census amphibian breeding ponds. In our experience, no one talks to
herpetologists about their work, not even their families, so they are generally
hungry for company and conversation. Once they know your intentions are honest,
they will generally invite you to tag along with them and gain some valuable
field experience.
Since the spring breeding season is one of the prime times to photograph
amphibians, you need to be especially careful not to disturb your subjects. For
this reason, we often use larger focal length lenses, from 200mm to 300mm. Our
200mm is a macro lens and it focuses to within eight inches. Some wary songsters
will stop calling if you try to get that close. A few springs ago, when we tried
to photograph calling boreal toads, they would stop calling if we got any closer
than five or six feet. Our solution was to use a 300mm telephoto with a 27.5mm
(PK-13) extension tube attached. The normal minimum focusing distance on the
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We took this shot in Florida in the middle of the day. The rich color of this
image is the reason we prefer to use Fujichrome Velvia film whenever we can.
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300mm is eight feet. With the tube attached the distance drops to five and a
half feet. This gave us enough magnification to fill the frame with the toad and
not be so close that we would inhibit its calling. Tubes are an inexpensive
accessory that we use any time we are photographing small, wary critters
(lizards, songbirds, butterflies, etc.). Nikon makes three tubes that are
useful: an 8mm (PK-11), 14mm (PK-12), and 27.5mm (PK-13), and each costs around
$60. Canon, of course, also makes similar extension tubes. Theirs include a
15mm(FD-15), a 25mm (FD-25), and a 50mm (FD-50). For EOS users there is a 12mm
(EF-12) and a 25mm (EF-25) tube as well. All of the Canon tubes range between
$70 and $100.
Now that you've found the croaker and have it centered in the viewfinder,
there's just one more problem. It's midnight, and that new fine-grained
Goofychrome high speed ISO 10,000 film that you just bought still isn't fast
enough to give you an image. It's time to haul out your electronic flash. We
used to think that the flash sensor in a camera worked the same as the light
meter, so you had a choice of spot, center-weighted or matrix. Well, a Nikon
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We used a single off-camera flash attached by a synch cord. The flash was
positioned directly over the end of the lens and up about 30 degrees. The
exposure compensation dial was set at + 2/3 of a stop.
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representative recently told us this just ain't so. It doesn't matter what light
meter setting you use, the flash works off a different set of sensors, four or
five of them positioned over different areas of the shutter plane. So, if that's
the case, then all you need to do is focus, and blast away and the TTL flash
technology should magically give you the correct amount of light for a proper
exposure. Sorry, but no. The flash will give you the correct exposure for a
medium-toned subject, which happens to be the tone of most frogs and toads. But,
if your subject is lighter or darker than medium, you need to tell your flash to
output more or less light, respectively. You do that with the exposure
compensation dial. For pale spadefoot toads we used +2/3 of a stop. The maximum
compensation we have used for any pale subject is +1 1/3 stops. When we are
working with a dark subject, such as a cold wood frog, we usually select a
setting of -1/3 or -2/3 of a stop. We have never used a setting darker than
this.
In 1758, Carolus Linnaeus, the father of animal classification, offered this
scholarly description of frogs and toads. "Most amphibia are abhorrent because
of their cold body, pale color, cartilaginous skeleton, filthy skin, fierce
aspect, calculating eye, offensive smell, harsh voice, squalid habitation and
terrible venom." Now there's a subject worthy of tracking down. We'll see you
there!
Field Guides
- Reptiles & Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, 3rd Edition,
Roger Conant & Joseph Collins, Peterson Field Guides, 1991.
- Amphibians of North America, Hobart M. Smith, Golden Press, New York,
1978.
- Field Guide to Western Reptiles & Amphibians, Robert Stebbins, Peterson
Field Guides, 1966.
- A Guide to Amphibians and Reptiles, Thomas F. Tyning, Stokes Nature Guide,
1990. (This is a personal favorite of ours.)
- Voices of the Night - Calls of the Frogs and Toads of Eastern North America,
Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
Serious Science for Nature Nerds
(Not to be read without adult supervision.)
- Biology of Amphibians, William E. Duellman & Linda Trueb, McGraw Hill Book
Co., 1986.
- A Natural History of Amphibians, Robert C. Stebbins & Nathan W. Cohen,
Princeton University Press, 1995.
Questions and Answers
Wayne Lynch and Aubrey Lang will answer
readers' questions in their bi-monthly column. They can be contacted via e-mail
at
this address: lynchandlang@photosafaris.com
.
Due to the anticipated volume of
inquiries Wayne and Aubrey cannot answer questions individually, but they will
cover a
wide range of topics within each column. The new columns will come on-line
May 1, July 1 and September 1. We look forward to hearing from you.
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