The guttural chorus below my house belongs to southern leopard frogs. They croak and growl, not just at the water surface but completely under the relatively warmer water when air temperatures dip into the forties. They select ponded spots in the creek as did Rio Grande leopard frogs and smallmouth salamanders last fall. Sometimes tadpoles of those species swim freely among the breeding southern leopard frogs. I wonder what competitive or predatory effect the older tads have. Anything must be temporary, because transformed Rio Grande froglets and salamanders exit these creek pools in the first weeks of May, leaving the tads of southern leopard frogs alone for a month.

Shumard (Texas) oak is another reproducing southerner. Its reddish blooms dangle among tiny reddish green leaves. Locally called Buckley, Spanish, pin, or red oak, this much-confused relative of the southern and northern red oaks is a local favorite. One grand old tree is two and a half feet in diameter but only thirty-five feet tall, since it was topped in a storm. Most were cut in pioneer days and sprouted around stump edges, forming circles of multiple-trunked trees. Now they may die and fall, because a fungus plugs their circulation systems, and supporting heartwood rots. Their scarlet to burgundy leaves in November will remind me when Rio Grande leopard frogs and narrowmouth salamanders return to the creek.