6-29-07 River Bend Forest Preserve, Champaign County, IL

A lot of rain during the week had reflooded a meadow that had been full of American toads on my first visit. At that time, the American toads were all but deafening at this location and at my next visit two weeks later there was nothing but mud. Tonight there was one insistent American toad, a few plains leopard frogs, a whole chorus of Fowler's toads and even a few cricket frogs. In the recording, you'll hear an American toad followed by a couple of plains leopard frogs (the clucking sounds) followed by the American toad again joined by the Fowler's toads. The cricket frogs, unfortunately, are not audible in this recording.

6-23-07 Shades State Park, IN

Yes, I call this the Frog Blog of Central Illinois, but after a couple of weeks being too busy with family things to get out to do frog call surveying, I couldn't resist posting this recording done at Shades State Park in Indiana while on a camping trip this past weekend with my son Stephen. We arrived much later than we had intended on Friday night and were setting up our tent by flashlight. I became aware of a chorus of E. gray tree frogs at some distance, so though it was after midnight, Stephen and I went for a walk and were able to track them down more or less. There was no direct access to the lake where they were from where we were that we could find at night so the recording is done from the opposite side of a wooded area bordering the lake. In the recording cricket frogs are also audible. When we got near enough to record I was excited to hear quite a number of green frogs calling too, but unfortunately their calls are subdued enough they are not audible on the recording at the distance we were. After tracking down the lake the next day I had wanted to return that night to try to get a good recording of the green frogs, but that night there was a thunderstorm -- not conducive to tramping through the underbrush to the edge of the lake or recording either one.

6-3-07 Collins Pond, Homer Lake Forest Preserve, Champaign County, IL

Cricket frogs and bullfrogs. That's all I heard tonight at Homer Lake and Collins Pond. The recording is from Collins Pond. Very near me was a bullfrog under some overhanging bushes on the edge of the pond. The recording opens with him doing a series of three "croaks." Following this was a small splash from that direction. He gives another two croaks. A bullfrog from across the pond answers, then there is a series of splashes. This series is the nearby bullfrog, for some reason, being startled and hopping in a short series of hops across the surface of the pond several feet before going under water. Cricket frogs and some noisy birds form the background for this.