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17 Frog Pond night birds
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: 17 Frog Pond night birds
- From: Randy Emmitt <birdcr@concentric.net>
- Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2003 21:56:08 -0400
- Delivered-to: pardo@metalab.unc.edu
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
Folks,
Roger Rittmaster and I braved Saturday nights storms and military maneuvers
to look for and photograph treefrogs at 17 Frog Pond in the Sandhills
Gamelands in Scotland Co, NC. We found and heard only 8species of frogs and
toads (as were novices I'm sure we missed a few). The species we heard or
saw were: Barking Treefrog, Pine Woods Treefrog, Green Frog, Southern
Leopard Frog, Southern Cricket Frog, Southern Toad, Narrow-mouthed Toad and
Oak Toad. A new photo gallery can be seen at:
http://public.fotki.com/rlephoto/frogs_and_toads/
Ok back to the birds! We observed 4 Common Nighthawks until it was entirely
dark, they called many times and even boomed several times. The military
started shooting guns, machine guns and exploded several bombs only miles
from us(if not closer), the Nighthawk booms and gunfire made the evening
very exciting if not somewhat frightening! We also heard just before night
fall and slightly after dark several Chuck-wills Widows calling but once
the frog chorus and gunfire started they were drowned out. Also heard
Brown-headed Nuthatches until dark.
One toad call sounded like a baby bird calling for food, we searched many
large clumps of grass and could not find the calling suspected Oak Toads
(Roger did get one photos of an Oak Toad, at times the calls were nearly
deafening.
After dark we found several species of dragonflies and damselflies either
perched or on the wing. At one point I was photographing a damselfly in the
dark with flashlight and a darner circled my light several times. And I was
home before 3AM Sunday morning :-)
Randy Emmitt
Rougemont, NC