I'm back from my latest foray. This marks a big milestone for me. I've
now gotten every single known species of frog in Georgia. All 31
species. The first ones were easy, the last one was a huge task.
Brimley's chorus frog was last reported officially in Georgia in 1970.
Several herps folks provided me locations where they found some in the
early 80's. I have, with that data, over the last several years beaten
the bushes repeatedly in the known areas with no success. It's become a
early spring ritual. The herps folks have pretty much decided that
urbanization around Savannah has wiped them out. After my last foray a
couple weeks ago I was inclined to agree as far as the Savannah area. I
went into South Carolina to record the ones I provided here as samples.
I'd stubbornly refused to do that, hoping to get Georgia ones.
When I quit looking by paying attention to where they were known and
went back to being a ecologist I expanded the search area considerably.
A lot of it I'd already covered, but not all. And Wednesday night it
paid off, way north of known locations I found a population of them in
Screven County on wildlife preserve land. I personally heard scattered
individuals calling over several square miles of area. It's the end of
calling season for them, so only a few still calling. I recorded some
audio for record at two sites. I caught two of them and brought them
back for photography, they were far too jumpy to try photographing on my
own:
http://wwknapp.home.mindspring.com/docs/brimley's.chorus.frog.html
In view of the poor calling they were doing, it will probably be next
year before I can start expanding out from the area I found them. But,
at least I have a starting point that's full of them. And being a
wildlife preserve, unlikely to be urbanized to death.
And I know a bunch of herps folks who are going to be pleased.
As if that was not enough, I recorded one of the harder to record other
frogs, the Eastern Spadefoot Toad, the same night. They are not rare and
are statewide, but call only briefly after rains, so are hard to find.
I've only found them calling a few times, and rarely close. Anyway, I
had a nice chorus right beside the road. Nearest one in front of me was
about 20' away in a slightly flooded woods. And they were all along a
section of road for several hundred feet, making the angle for the
chorus near 180 degrees. Background frogs are Southern Toad, Spring
Peeper, Ornate Chorus Frogs, maybe some others. Some traffic and
aircraft noise.
For this set, the MS setups were set to where the meter reading was
about -10dB peaks for both mid and side mic, making the gain setting on
the two channels different. (in the last set the gain was kept the same
between mics) In processing the MS, a standard 60:50 side to mid ratio
was used as it sounded ok. Other mics were also set to -10dB peaks. And
a 160hz cutfilter was applied to keep distant traffic down to a minimum.
I backed off across the road with the Telinga, but note how it's only
getting the center of this wide, close chorus. The others all from the
road shoulder nearest the chorus.
http://loscan.home.mindspring.com/SP.MS.MKH30-40.mp3
http://loscan.home.mindspring.com/SP.MS.MKH30-60.mp3
http://loscan.home.mindspring.com/SP.MS.MKH80-80.mp3
http://loscan.home.mindspring.com/SP.SASS.MKH110.mp3
http://loscan.home.mindspring.com/SP.SASS.MKH20.mp3
http://loscan.home.mindspring.com/SP.Telinga.DATS.mp3
With this set of samples, I've filled server space I have for samples.
Next time some of what's up will be removed. In case anyone wants them,
get them now. The new ones average around 470k each.
Walt
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