Lake Creek VERY Hot and Sticky Amphibian Watch Jul 14, 2018

Our central Texas region had been a lucky recipient of scattered showers during the first two week of this month. In fact, July 4 festivities were 'rained out' for many folks. The rains however were very spotty, with some of us getting 3-4 inches and others only a trace.

Six of us gathered at the dam for monitoring - thanks Kathy, Carolyn, Jennifer, Paula and RuthAnn for joining me.

Environmental Conditions (at 20:35):
Air Temp: 30.1C
Water Temp: 34.3C
Sky: 0 (clear)
Water Level: MAA++ (Much Above Average - Overflowing) - several narrow streams were still overflowing the dam.

Relative Humidity: 60%

General Observations:
There was plenty of stranded algal matting on the dam, left over from earlier flooding. There were massive debris piles along the banks up to 3 feet higher than the current normal water level. During the rains, a huge amount of water roared over that dam and carried a lot of brush and reeds downstream.
Some of us had arrived early hoping to spot the juvenile Roseate Spoonbill that had been photographed at the dam earlier in the week. No spoonbill. Again this month we saw swarms of insects out over the water for the swallows and bats. When is became completely dark, the Giant Walkingstick pairs again started to appear on the sidewalks and in the grass, always below overhanging trees. We are seeing more walkingsticks, more months in a row every year; most interesting.

Amphibian/Herp Watch Report:
This was a fairly quiet night at Lake Creek. The B. Cricket Frogs called in small groups intermittently, just often enough to to get faint documentation recordings (Weak C3). The Green Tree Frogs started calling late, finally getting up to overlapping (C2) in trees between the lake and the neighborhood sidewalk. Our visit to the limestone wall yielded the expected fat and happy Gulf Coast Toads, and we also got photos of several Chirping Frogs.
The most prominent sightings this month were water snakes. We saw six or eight individuals during the hour. The activity seemed unusually high, with constant swimming and constant high-speed 'fishing'. They are clearly masters at finding shallows and potholes full of stranded fish. All took pix of several Diamondbackeds as well as Blotched for the record.
In all, two herp species and four amphibian species documented for this month.

Posted on July 18, 2018 01:09 AM by