Howdy,
So, I was in Zion national park this week chipping off the accumulated
effects of a few weeks' too much work at the day job...
...and up in one of the side canyons had the good fortune to encounter a
loud little bunch of what I think are canyon tree frogs, in a narrow
slot canyon area, calling at dusk.
My wife and I sat with them and listened for a good hour or more, and I
made several recordings, and I have a question for the frog experts in the
group...
In addition to the rather unbelievable jackhammer calls (I videoed one
fellow beating his throat against the pool's rock wall, I'll post the vid
if there's interest...), I noticed that not infrequently some distinct
almost cat-meow like calls were made when one frog would swim over and,
er, try to mount another!
The latter were a most unexpected and comical set of anguished-sounding
squawks -- when we first heard them my wife and I had a really hard time
not laughing out loud and spoiling the recording(s)!
I remember reading about "release calls" that one male frog will make when
another inexpertly tries to mount him, the semantics of which I believe
boil down to, "try your luck elsewhere, pal, I'm a guy too!" -- and was
wondering if this could be an example?
Or, is this just the cry of love -- or anguish -- I'm all too familiar
with myself?
Excerpt, about 2.3 MB; in stereo center you can hear my suspected
"release calls" punctuating the cacophony:
http://www.quietamerican.org/download/dropbox/CanyonTreeFrog.mp3
Apologies for the "gating" sounding artifacts in the MP3, didn't process
this, it's just the compression on the noise floor of my mics. Recorded
with sonic studios DSM-6S/EH pseudo-binaurals and pre into a Sony MZ-R37
consumer MD -- my "open box" RH10 HiMD didn't arrive in time for this trip
sadly! :)
More, and from different perspectives, on request... I hope you like this
Walt! I was really thinking of you when I recorded it. :)
best
aaron
http://www.quietamerican.org
| quod omne animal post |
| cogitum est triste... |
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturerecordists/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
|