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).
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.
I was privileged to be invited to a "Frog Party" tonight by a friend of a friend on his private wetland. Well before sunset the American toads and Spring Peepers were raising a huge ruckus and it only intensified after sunset. They were joined by an occasional W. Chorus frog and one or two Plains Leopard Frogs. Maybe an early gray tree frog too, but over the insistence of the hundreds of peepers, it was d ifficult to hear much else. The recording includes one or two Plains Leopard Frogs throughout, but if I hadn't heard them in person while recording, I probably never would have recognized they were there in the recording. The Peepers were deafening and the American Toads were doing their best to keep up.
First sign of amphibian life at the Perkins Road Wetland site tonight-- two American toads trying to out trill each other despite 42 degree air temperature (water may have been warmer-- the day was fairly warm before the sun went down). The recording here doesn't have it, but before I got my recorder out, a couple of calls sounded similar to a car trying to start on a freezing day-- just couldn't quite get it going, or kind of dying at the end. Apparently they got warmed up call-wise before I was able to start recording, though these still sound somewhat lethargic to me...
I was on a cub scout camping trip with my son, Stephen, and on our first night there I had to find out where the calls were coming from. Hiking down the road a short distance from the group camp sites I found a clearing with a fire pit in the middle and on the opposite side a large scrape in the ground with calling Spring Peepers and American Toads. The next day returning from our hike I came by the scrape again and found several pairs of toads in amplexus like the pair in the photo surrounded by black strings of eggs. The recording is from the first evening. I particularly like this melodic combination of the bell-like sounds of a large chorus of spring peepers and the long sustained trills of the American toads.
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.
Busy weekend and I wasn't able to make it out on my normal rounds of Champaign County Forest Preserve District Properties. So I took the opporunity for a quick stop in town at a spot I'd wanted to get a listen in at: the ponds at the Japan House on S. Lincoln in Urbana. I had expected more bull frogs. They were there and calling periodically, but not as many or as frequent as I had expected. Cricket frogs were plentiful and, as I was about to leave, an American toad joined in as well. In the recording here you will hear the American toad, cricket frogs, and a faint bull frog a few seconds into the recording. In addition, the blackbirds were active and noisy in the reeds and there is some distinct traffic noise from nearby Lincoln Ave.
Visiting my brother this weekend near Peoria so didn't get to my usual rounds of frog call surveying for the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, but he lives on a lake with ponds and wooded areas nearby. Just in the course of Saturday evening I heard a couple of cricket frogs, a couple of bull frogs, a plains leopard frog, American toads, western chorus frogs and gray tree frogs. The recording is of a gray tree frog and several American toads in the pond across the lane from my brother's house.
On my survey of River Bend Forest Preserve tonight, I heard my first cricket frogs of the season. Here they are against a backdrop of American toads at Sunset Lake. I also heard a lone Western chorus frog in a woodland pool. I did not survey all of my normal sites at River Bend due to the high wind and less than ideal survey conditions.
American Toads across an arm of Shadow Lake, River Bend Forest Preserve, Champaign County, Illinois. Their chorus is punctuated about half-way through with the warning slap of a beaver tail. During the three hours I was out surveying tonight I also heard Western Chorus Frogs and one Plains Leopard Frog.
