The quacking is wood frogs. The shy wood frogs fall silent whenever a car drives by, and several cars drive past on this early April evening. There are not as many wood frogs as there are peepers. Darling can count individuals, so he marks them as a two. The ghostly sound is not a frog at all, but a snipe, a type of wetland bird.
Snipes are uncommon in Vermont, but in the West Rutland marsh they seem to be everywhere.
The wet raspberry sound is sometimes described as a beep or a peent and it is made by a woodcock. The woodcocks, another type of bird, are also busy in the marsh tonight. Occasionally one of the males flutters overhead in part of its courtship activities. After tallying this abundance, Darling drives about a third of a mile down the road to the next survey site. At this site and the third, near a farm pond, there are plenty of frogs calling in the chilly spring night.