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17 Frog Pond night birds



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