Herp March Madness 2016 at Lake Creek - TAW Saturday March 12
As we had hoped, Saturday night, March 12 turned out to be a good night for amphibian monitoring. In fact, it was a good herp night all around, but more about that later.
Participants:
Seven of us (Sue, Myra, Beth, Carolyn, Kathy, Andy and Chuck) braved the high water running about three inches deep over Lake Creek dam, wading our way to our preferred side for listening. The heavy rains earlier in the week had resulted in flooding of the area, and a great deal of grass, brush, small trees and algal mats were wedged up in the creekside shrubs and the sidewalk railing where I take my environmental readings.
Environmental Conditions:
Air Temp: 19.6C / Water Temp: 23.3C / Sky: 0 (clear) / Rel Humid: 60% ; Water Lvl: MAA++ flooding.
Observations:
The calling frequency and the numbers of amphibians calling increased during the listening hour. We heard waves of Blanchard's Cricket Frogs call and then fall off on both sides of the creek. At first it was occasional, but we eventually heard them calling full chorus, on and off every few minutes. We heard a lone Rio Grand Leopard Frog call early, and continued to hear single individuals calling on both sides of the creek occasionally all during the hour.
I recorded a RG Leopard call near me and Kathy recorded a group of N Cricket Frogs calling near her. Better, Kathy caught a Cricket Frog. Kathy and Chuck have posted their pictures on iNaturalist. I attached my sound files and one of their pictures to my TAW observations for the month.
While returning to the parking area, we all saw a nice mid-sized Blotched Water Snake who posed on the dam for us (actually frozen in astonishment at all the headlamps pointing at it) before swimming back up creek. We could not get a good picture, but the field marks were clear and we were close. A few minutes later Chuck picked up a Texas Brown Snake which was moving across the sidewalk. Cute little thing that had to tolerate some handling and a few camera shots before being put off in the grass to go on its way.
Thanks, everyone for coming out an making it a fun and rewarding evening.
See y'all next month.
