Spring on Staten Island
The Love Song of the Peepers

Now that Spring is returning to our island, you can hear the glorious sounds of part of Staten Island's native frog population--especially the mellifluous Spring Peepers--at twilight or just after nightfall all over the area. On the College of Staten Island campus, you can best hear Spring Peepers from the baseball fields near 1A, and throughout the Willowbrook Park which adjoins the west side of campus. On the rest of the island, take a stroll--or a drive with all your car windows down--along Travis Avenue between Victory Boulevard and Richmond Avenue. So you'll know what to listen for, try listening to a spring peeper call (348k) and a spring peeper chorus (106k). The call of the peepers is as sure a sign of the approach of Staten Island's summer as the re-opening of Ralph's Ices on Port Richmond Avenue at Catherine Street.

So keep your eyes open for the return of the hummingbirds to the wild area near 6S, as well as the glossy ibis, downy woodpeckers, and night herons, all of which I have seen on campus along the Willowbrook stream near the Victory Boulevard entrance. And keep your eyes and ears open for the call of the male mockingbird who loves to dominate the North end of campus from the tallest tree on the walkway between the Campus Center and the Library; you'll know him by his ever-changing song and the little jumps and flips he does to attract the attention of female mockingbirds.