Lake Creek CenTex Amphibian Watch May 14, 2016
Monitoring Period: 7:50PM to 10:00PM.
Participants: Sue, Bill, Kathy, Myra, Mary Kay, RuthAnn. Welcome RuthAnn, a recruit from last month’s TPWD Herps of Texas Workshop. She will be a terrific addition to our team, being an enthusiastic herp lover. Anyone who adores snakes is immediately my best friend!
Environmental Conditions:
Water Level: MAA +++ Just two hours after a day-long light rain, the dam was overflowing, along its entire length, at a depth of up to 6 inches. What a roar!!
Water Temp: 22C / Air Temp: 24C / Sky: 2 (cloudy) / Rel Humidity: 98%
After a day of wondering whether it would clear enough to have our Amphibian Watch night, we got lucky. Thank goodness for weather apps and last-minute texting capabilities.
Six of us braved the humid air so thick that you could actually see it, and were rewarded during an extra-long monitoring session with observations of six (woo-hoo) amphibians and one adorable (sorry folks) little Texas Blind Snake. More on it later.
We moved up the NE side of the impoundment above the dam to get far enough away from the noise of the water to be able to hear calls. We had plenty of room to spread out along the shoreline, and were able to get recordings and photos of several species.
Observations:
[All photo and sound file observations will be linked to this report in the following comments.]
We started hearing Blanchard’s Cricket Frogs immediately, and their calling intensity increased from C1 to C3 during the evening. I made a final recording at C3.
We heard individual Rio Grande Leopard Frogs calling occasionally on our side and across the water, CI all hour at just C1.
Bill moved on down below the dam to detect Green Tree Frogs in their traditional location in a bank of trees across the creek. He could barely hear them above the din of the streamflow and the nearby roadway. He also heard an American Bullfrog, but could not get a good recording due to the distance and noise from Parmer Road.
After the official monitoring hour ended at 9:25PM, we walked back toward the parking lot, where RuthAnn spotted that Texas Blind Snake next to the sidewalk.
I kept hearing Cliff Chirping Frogs, on an off all evening, but at an extreme distance behind us, toward the subdivision, not at the creek. We all decided to take the extra time to walk behind the houses, listening for those chirping frogs, and yes, we heard a few faint calls. Then we found a tall limestone wall. No calls!!! However, spotlighting the wall showed us several individuals and we got good photos as well as capturing an individual for quick close-ups. It is so hard to distinguish Rio Grande Chirpers from Cliff Chirpers, that we felt we needed to look closely at size and for distinguishing field marks. It was released back onto the wall.
Icing on the cake, we heard a few faint Gulf Coast Toad calls as we were walking. Looking in the larger crevasses of the wall, we found two toads. Have photos of one of them as well.
What a night!!
Ribbit, Ribbit,
Sue Anderson
