Hyla crucifer, the Spring Peeper. They are small and are given their species name by the cross on their back.
Sometimes they are almost pink in color, but also change shades with the humidity.

Thank you soooooo much! I hear them in the Spring here but have never seen one. WOW! I'm so very excited! This one was about 3/4" so he wasn't an adult. How cool! WOW! I can now go to bed smiling!

They are truly tiny, so the one you saw might well be mature. While I hear thousands in chorus, each Spring, only the males would be noisy, so you can double the number around, I expect.

I Googled size and saw 1.5 inches so that's why I thought he wasn't full grown. Also didn't have that "full grown" look about him.

I had a tree frog lay eggs in the birdbath on the deck last year and decided to keep some in a bucket and put the rest in our frog pond (which has a couple of bullfrogs even though it's only about 8x6. I felt like I was feeding the bullfrogs by dumping the eggs in there, but we have a variety of frogs laying eggs in it and some survive. It was a cool experience to see them change daily. I'm seeing grandchildren after they crawl out of the pond this year. LOL My husband had named me Mama Tad during that season of joy.

Saw two N. Leopard frogs a couple of feet from the pond yesterday, so that was cool. My hubby found one under the lid to our water meter last year. First I'd seen. But now I'm questioning that compared to the Pickerel. Not sure which is which any more? Would you check this one out? Four more pictures if you click on right arrow above.

I thought we had two Pickerel frogs mating last year in the pond. I scooped them up with the net while I was taking out some leaves. They just stayed together. Got photos but looking at them this year makes me wonder if they're actually N. Leopard. Since they were wet the coloring was different and thought the marks were more square but now wondering. Would you mind taking a look at this one too? Click forward arrow above photos for 3 more pictures.

I'm really confused now.

I believe you are correct that your Spring Peeper was not mature, as I recall they are bigger than that one. The other frogs are all pickerel frogs. They have two neat rows of squarish dark spots down the back. Leopard Frogs have random, more oval spots on the back. I knew that one had square spots and the other roundish ones, but had to google in 'Leopard or Pickerel Frog?' to find out. Wanted to be a herpetologist when about 14, so recall that the two species differed in shape and arrangement of spots, but could not recall which was which. I am over 70 now,having spent 39 years teaching Biology, but remain curious about Reptiles and Amphibians.

Hi. Leopard frogs do indeed have roundish spots, and Pickerel do have square ones in a row, but they have an awful lot of variation in patterning. We have only Pickerel here, but they can look an awful lot like Leopards due to the rounded spots. A sure fire way to tell is to get one in hand and stretch out a leg. Pickerels have yellow on the back of the leg, Leopards don't.

Also, it looks like you live in the mountainous portion of VA. Leopards do not get into the mountains, living to the east, down in the Piedmont. (Data taken from Peterson's Guide, by Conant and Collins.)

Oh gee, bogturtle .... such a loss to change the name to Pickerel in my online gallery. :-) Oh well ... I especially want to have the correct names on things. I will now search my blog to see what I can update there. Probably did a post on it.

Danetherton, I try not to pick up frogs and toads because of the thinness of their skin and organisms that might be on my hands. It's very hard not to but I succeed except for the occasional baby tree frog which I will put my hand up to allowing it to walk on it.

My natural tendency would be to hug everything I see. I give the bees a back rub while they feed on our flowers and so far they all love it. I know they can sense fear and react to it, so that's the key.

I'm in the Piedmont actually. Mountains are 45 minutes away.

Bogturtle ... biology wasn't my subject when I was in high school. We had a teacher that walked around with a huge snake on his neck. Growing up in the city I was terrified of snakes and also bugs which I got from my mom screaming every time a moth flew around or a bug crawled by. Fortunately I got gradually delivered of both fears when we moved to the woods 23 years ago. Now I love all of God's Creation and it so fascinates me.

I was a good student but 3rd grading period we had to do a bug collection and I was petrified and told the teacher and he told me if I didn't do it I'd fail that period. So, I failed it because there was no way ... parents understood but it left a bad taste in my mouth for biology for a long time. LOL

Thank you both for the confirmation.