It shouldn’t be this hard

It shouldn’t be this hard. The hoarse bass-toned calls are sounding just in front of me. The notes emanate from clumps of bulrush sharing swamp space with yellow flag iris, water arum, cattails, and skunk cabbage.

I’m listening for bullfrogs—that part is easy—and looking for bullfrogs, which is proving difficult. By the sound, some of the bullfrogs are less than half a dozen wet steps away. But despite their bulk and bulging throats, the bullfrogs are camouflaged in humps of vegetation in the stagnant water sprinkled with algae.

It’s just past sunrise, which was at 5:19 a.m. It’s surprisingly light already. As I left the house for a mile-plus hike to the swamp, I was greeted by robins, reliably and cheerfully vocal at the slightest hint of dawn.

I walk the trail to the swamp. Or is it a marsh? I’m never quite sure, for it has a combination of woody vegetation and herbaceous plants. According to my bird identification app, one of the birds I hear at the wetland’s edge is a swamp sparrow. So I go with that—sunrise in the swamp rather than morning in the marsh.

Also chatting up the new day along the trail are yellow warblers, red-eyed vireos, song sparrows, common yellowthroats, and orioles. A noisy crow passes over, then loons in a trailing hello of tremolo. As I near the swamp, I hear what sounds like dogs barking in the distance. It’s bullfrogs.

By early June, the trail offers only glimpses of the wetland through portals in the new leaf cover. So I have to get to swamp level. I do so by side-stepping down the steep 30-foot bank, grabbing saplings to stay under control and on my feet.

At the edge of the water I find my window on the swamp between bushes and saplings. I settle in, doused in mosquito spray. Despite my rustling down the bank, the bullfrogs never stopped barking. They are loud, mostly emitting, over and over, two bellowing notes, like distorted, amplified plucks on a bass guitar.

Each time a raspy, I-mean-business note booms to my left, the water ripples, presumably from air pushing through the bullfrog’s throat, which must be partly in water. So the frog is right there! In the weeds and reeds. But I can’t see it. Nor can I see what sounds like a dozen more bullfrogs filling the muggy morning air with mating calls.

And so goes an hour at the swamp. I start stirring to get up when I notice a small spider suspended in air. The spider’s thread hangs from a willow branch but is nearly invisible against the water’s silvery surface. I avoid the spider, and climb back up the steep bank.

Sides of the trail are spotted with the wildflowers of late spring—red columbine, wild geraniums, oxeye daisies (the flower buttons still dime-size fuzzballs), false Solomon’s seal, and white campion, along with trilliums, now shriveling among the bulging ferns.

I sidestep inch-long green worms—oak leafrollers—hanging over the trail on silk threads. Chipmunks and rabbits dash across the graveled corridor. I catch glimpses of some of the birds I’m hearing. The quiet morning is quite awake. And in my wake, I still hear the bullfrogs I couldn’t see.

Dave Greschner, retired sports/outdoors editor at the Rice Lake Chronotype, writes about nature and the outdoors, pursues nature photography, and is the author of “Soul of the Outdoors.” He can be reached at davegreschner@icloud.com.