Cope's Gray Treefrogs, camouflaged by their pea green skins, leave their flowering dinner tables for safety among the grass stems and leaf litter of the prairie or oak savannah. The annual hawk migration begins in Minnesota skies while a frog migration of sorts continues on the ground. Cooling night temperatures prompt the wood frogs, treefrogs, peepers, and toads to hop to mature woodlands where they hibernate during winter. Gray Treefrogs forsake the woodpile and butterfly roost-box for warmer spots in the ground. Butterflies such as the tortoiseshells, anglewings, and Mourning Cloaks take over the niches the treefrogs left.
Little turtles hatch and some crawl from their ground nests to the nearest pond.
Many stay buried until next April or May and emerge then. These turtles have very little impact on frogs. A big fat toad gleaned the last worms and bugs from the vegetable garden last evening, then hopped into a woodchuck's burrow, and hasn't been seen since. Frogs on land are now extremely hard to find because they blend in so well with the drying leaves and grasses. Green frog tadpoles hide among the lily pads, gleaning algae until the cooling water slows them down.