From: Rob Danielson <>
>
> I was taking the very faint gravel-voiced guy on the left towards
> the begiining as a Pickerel, but maybe he's a Northern Leopard? The
> Pickerel sample on Walt's site has a more sustained snore. Rob D.
There are pickerel calls throughout the 7 minute clip. About a average
of 2 per minute. Most are faint and partially masked by the moisture
sound I pointed out, so you may only get the loudest part of the call
rising above that. These fall right in with my experience with pickerel
calls in how they sound. Length of call is variable with this species.
Because I'm not familiar with the mics I cannot give a distance to the
frogs. It might have been quite close, pickerel frog calls don't carry far.
There is one call in the clip that sounds a bit like a leopard frog
call, the chuckle call, but it's so masked by the moisture sound I
cannot be sure.
I did a lot of survey work with pickerel frogs down here, they are one I
greatly expanded their known range in Georgia. We don't have northern
leopards down here, but have the southern leopards. What little I've
heard northern leopards in my travels, they sound just the same as the
southern leopards. Southern leopards snore is smoother than pickerels,
and almost always they mix in some of their chuckles or wet balloon
calls to give themselves away. Pickerels only give the one call.
Pickerels here call from late February into May or so. Their main season
is March-April. Every time I've watched one calling he was floating in
the water surface, only the eyes and maybe a bit of nose above the
water. His vocal sacs, which are behind the front legs, were entirely
underwater during the call. He's one I need to do some more hydrophone
work on.
Southern Leopards also call at the water surface. I've not been able to
watch one while it was giving the snore call. Here they can call almost
any time of year, mostly chuckles and wet balloon calls, the snores are
more winter or early spring and not as common.
I've heard the snore of the northern leopard several times. Near
identical to the southern leopard. As are their chuckle and wet balloon
calls. I'm glad I'm not trying to sort out those two in a site by their
calls.
Walt
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