Frog and Toad Survey #3

Friday night was our final frog and toad survey for this year.  Three of us stopped for dinner in Milaca before heading out to Kroschel to complete our route.  Our survey involves stopping 10 times and listening for frogs for 5 minutes.  I think this is the third year we've completed the route.  That makes a total of 9 times we've stood at the same place and listened for 5 minutes.  You get to know that area of swamp, wetland, sedge pond or pasture quite well when you spend so much time out there.  Surprisingly, this time we heard the fewest number of frogs of the 9 times we've been out there.  We heard frogs at 4 of the stops.  At six places, no frogs were croaking.  We heard gray tree frogs and green frogs.  The green frogs were really singing at White Lily Lake.  But in general, the frogs were very quiet.  Maybe the heat of the last week dampened their sex drive.  A cold front had gone through this evening and the temperature was a cool 68 degrees when we were out there.  A fairly strong wind was blowing.  The wind made it hard to hear everything. Some spots were less windy but the mosquitoes whining in our ears also made it hard to hear so we preferred the wind.  At one particularly remote spot at a culvert where the ponds on both sides of the road are almost as high as the road, we had an incredible amount of traffic.  A pick up truck had been following us slowly, stopping at times, and generally creeping us out.  When we stopped at the culvert, the pick up truck also stopped to ask if we needed help.  They stayed to talk. They claimed to be surveying the deer population.  Another car came up and one of their friends got out to talk and let his dog out who was prancing around and barking.  Seriously?  We're trying to listen to frogs here.  We heard veerys and red winged blackbirds but no frogs.  We did seem a couple deer, several cats, two turkey vultures, a hawk and some lightning bugs.  It was a great evening to be outside, standing in the dark, listening to the sounds of nature with a couple other tree huggers.