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Re: Frogs

Subject: Re: Frogs
From: Walter Knapp <>
Date: Thu, 26 Dec 2002 19:15:44 -0500
KACastelein and DJLauten wrote:

 > Folks,
 >
 > Thought I'd let the frog folks know that since about 16 Dec, the frogs
 > started to sing in our neighborhood.  That was just after the heavy
 > rains began to fall.

Walt wrote:

Which frog, my guess would be Pacific Treefrog?

Depending on temperature we should have the start of frogcalls here any
time. Right now it's too cold, I have recorded the first frogs of the
year on new year's night in the past. But it has to get to about 36 or
so in the early evening to have that.

We had heavy rain Christmas eve. The dry pond swamp that was ruined was
flooded to near normal level by the high creek. Unfortunately with the
sill cut it won't stay. But all he's got to show for his
"beautification" is a giant mudhole.


Walt,

Definately the Treefrogs are calling, but there is also another species 
calling.  I should probably know this, but frogs are not my specialty. 
The second species is one of the chorus type frogs, as they sing from 
the ponds in a chorus, chirping manner.  The treefrogs call more spread 
out and not necessarily from a water location (as the one of the side of 
the house the other day!).

Around here temperature does not seem to matter much, although on the 
southern coast of Oregon if we hit the high 30's at night, that's cold! 
  (yeah we are lightweights when comes to the cold!).  What we have 
found is wind is a much bigger factor.  If it is cold and still, or warm 
and still, the frogs will call.  If it is windy and warm, the frogs 
won't be calling much.  To help understand the geography a bit, we have 
a dry and a rainy season.  Dry is summer when it literally does not rain 
for up to 5 months or so.  The frogs, no matter how warm it is, can't 
breed then because the ponds without predators are dry, so they breed in 
the winter (which I find amazing).  We finally started to get heavy rain 
after a very dry fall.  The frogs didn't waste any time and are singing 
like crazy.  The winter storms we get come in from the SW, pushing warm 
tropical air.  So pre-storm and storm conditions here are very windy and 
warm (we get storms with 50-75mph winds regularly).  After the storms it 
cools off but rarely down below 38F or so.  These colder quieter nights 
often result in lots of frog activity.

Having an outdoor hot tub really helps one tune into these nighttime 
activities!

Cheers
Dave Lauten




Walt






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