04-19-15 The Casual Toad

Yesterday my wife was out for a walk late morning and left me a voice mail of a strong chorus of American toads calling from the waterway along the Boulware trail in Champaign. Sweet! I wanted to get out there today but was busy until close to dusk. It rained all day today and the stream was swollen. Not sure what the factors were -- overcast, cooler weather, though not unreasonably cool, faster current or everyone just got their partying done yesterday, but I walked the main length along the waterway one direction and heard nothing today. On my way back, there was one solitary American toad calling perhaps once a minute or so. I started recording him and another somewhere a distance up the waterway began calling also, which seemed to give this guy a bit of motivation to step it up a bit so that the recording here has him calling about once every 30 seconds (the other one is not audible in the recording).

04-13-15 Another Night at RiverBend With Little to Hear

Another official Frog Call Survey tonight at RiverBend and didn't hear anything *officially*. There were far fewer Western Chorus frogs along the way than last time. One did call as I arrived at the Meadow, but was quiet for my five minute waiting period and my official 10 minutes of listening, so he doesn't count except as a footnote. Similarly, there was a very nice chorus of American Toads somewhere across the river at my monitoring spot there -- I could hear them but they weren't where I was monitoring. The recording, however, is of them. You have to listen hard -- there's the river in the foreground and distant highway noise in the background. Somewhere in the middle if you listen hard enough, there's a chorus of American toads (they were easier to hear in person than in this recording). Non-amphibian highlights included a couple of crayfish strolling the grassy path I was walking.