We had been having the worst drought I can remember in the 18 years I have lived in North Carolina. Just the day before I had walked in what was my pond. As I crunched though the water lilies I watched scores of grasshopper leap between the round leaves. I wondered if the pond would be dried up in the coming weeks. The dragonflies were still hopeful as I watched a female Slatey Skimmer laying eggs and 12-15 Blue Dashers chasing their prey.

The next day June 26, 2002 I arrived home at the start of a hour long downpour! It later rained steadily for two hours and around 9:30pm I noticed that the frogs were calling so loud that it seemed they were in the house with me and I did have the windows closed. I looked out my patio door only to find 5 Gray Tree Frogs clinging to the glass, the photo at right shows one of them.

It was still raining pretty good when these 5 Gray Tree Frogs were on my glass door, I also noted another 5 on the back deck. I opened the door to attempt to photograph a calling male on the deck right by the door and another one leaped inside the house! Once the rain settled down I wondered out and counted 15 frogs on the deck and concrete driveway and another 5 in a pink dogwood tree over my water feature. I estimated there was no less than 50 calling Gray Tree Frogs with in hearing distance, normally I only see 2-3 here each year, yet they call most summer nights here.

I kept hearing a tree frog call that I hoped would be a Barking Tree Frog, I heard it several different places in the back yard and down by the pond. Finally I found one of them in my pink dogwood tree with 2 other smaller tree frogs. It was a male Gray Tree Frog I believe and its shown in the photos below.

It was already past midnight so I decided to go back inside to get some sleep. On the way in I found this Gray Tree Frog (above and at right) still clinging to the door jamb.