Frog and Toad Survey #1

Last night three of us went out on the first frog and toad survey and what a beautiful night we had for herping.  The sky was partly cloudy with a half moon bright enough to cast moon shadows.  The temperature hovered around 60 degrees!  The wind was mild and I think I saw a total of two mosquitoes.  We heard tons of frogs.  The frogs were screaming last night.  We heard spring peepers (which we always hear on our first route), and chorus frogs (which we always hear on our first route) and wood frogs like I've never heard wood frogs before.  We've heard wood frogs before but never at every stop like last night. Since wood frogs croak only 2 weeks out of the year, we picked an excellent night to hear them.  I even asked them, "Is this an election year for you wood frogs?"  Sometimes the wood frogs were so loud they almost drowned out the chorus frogs.  I really had to concentrate to hear the chorus frogs.  Sometimes I would try to imagine where the individual frogs were located that we were listening to.  Was there 25 out there or was it 50?  150? How far away were they?  How close were the closest ones?  I would guess the closest ones were 4 feet away. Are they spaced randomly or clustered in groups?  If only little light bulbs would appear above their heads would I know exactly where they were. We also heard snipe and woodcock and Canadian geese and red winged blackbirds.  At stop #3 where we park over the culvert leading from one wetland to another something splashed in the water and set up a bunch of ripples.  Maybe it was a turtle or a muskrat or I don't know what else it could be.  I would think that wetland is too shallow for fish.  White Lily Lake looked as inviting as always.  At stop #8 a county sheriff pulled up behind us and asked if we hit a deer.  We said no.  Ahead was a big pickup pulling a boat that must have been the one to hit the deer.  We probably saw at least 6 deer on our trip plus one rabbit that could jump like a kangaroo.  Great night for frogging!