The evening before St. Patrick’s Day, Orlaith McCarthy Estes heard the age-old symbol of springtime on Martha’s Vineyard: peepers in the up-Island area.
“A nice pre–Saint Patrick’s Day gift for this Irish gal,” she said in an email to the Times. “Heard pinkletinks this [evening] in upper Longview [in West Tisbury]!”
Pinkletink is the Island’s colloquial name for the small, brown frog commonly known as the spring peeper. Island naturalist Matt Pelikan wrote previously that these amphibians live near shrub swamps and around brushy pond edges. The cries of pinkletinks is something Islanders look forward to annually.
“The onset of these calls, anywhere from late February to late March, depending on how mild the season is, is one of those signs of spring that human Vineyarders yearn for after a long, bleak winter,” he wrote.
The frog’s cries were first heard last year in February.
Yes! We just heard them in Harthaven on St. Patty’s Eve too. Yay to springtime!
I thought I heard pinkletinks last night on my late night dog walk in Lambert’s Cove! Thanks for the confirmation!
We have been hearing them in Chilmark since last week.