Lake Creek Steamy July Amphibian Watch Sunday 7/10/2016
Thank goodness for a decent breeze, even if it made listening for calls harder during gusts.
Five of us braved the heat and humidity. Thank you Bill, Kathy, Reggie, and Linda for coming out on a Sunday night with me this month.
Environmental Conditions (at 20:35):
Air Temp: 30.4C
Water Temp: 31.6C
Sky: 0 (clear)
Water Level: Average
Relative Humidity: 72%
The land area around the dam had been cleaned up during the past month, a big effort in response to all of the debris and damage left from heavy flooding the first week in June. The dam top was again dry as was the entire rocky creek bed below the dam. Algal mats have started to form again on top of the tepid water.
Dam site: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3671856
Algal mats: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/3671857
General Observations:
We saw very few fish fry, no Gambusia, few snails, or any other normal aquatic life that we have come to expect at this site. Recovery from the scouring flood appears to be slow. The water at the shallow face of the dam is usually teeming with aquatic critters. Several distant snakes were seen swimming and several larger fish jumped, going after insects we assumed. We did see a large number of damselflies as we walked to our monitoring site.
Insect calls were quite loud this month, adding to the background noise that can cover up faint amphibian calling.
Amphibian Watch Report:
The Blanchard's Cricket Frogs called intermittently the entire time we were at the monitoring site. There were at least three groups, calling at a distance (C3), on and off. I managed to get one adequate recording, and the sound file is linked in the first comment below.
We all heard one lone Green Tree Frog call just three times for less than 15 seconds each time during our 90 minute session. We have no recording of this (C1) observation.
