by Donna Lewis
Hello,
We just received the results from an acoustic monitoring event that was performed by Dr. Paul Crump, a biologist from the Texas Park and Wildlife Department. He is a Herpetologist in the Nongame and Rare Species Program.
First of all he was checking out Milam County to look for the Houston toad. This toad was recorded in this county years ago, but not found here in the past few years.
It was really interesting to see how this survey was done. Dr. Crump placed a recording box to a tree near our small pond at the back of our property. It is called a song meter and recorded two hours of audio every night from January 28, 2021 until June 12, 2021.
Then Dr. Trump retrieved the box and took it with him where he had the tedious job of listening to hundreds of hours of frogs and toads singing, so he could identify each species. Wow what a task! You really have to know your stuff to do it.
Sadly there were no songs of the Houston toad recorded, but he did identify seven different frogs and toads! I did not know we had that many on our property. Very neat.
I hope this report does not make its way to the snakes that live near me. They will be arriving here pretty fast for lunch. I have learned more about these creatures by looking up each one of them. Thanks to Dr. Paul Crump.
Nature Along the El Camino Real 