Useful field acessory: the digital recorder

Hi Folks,

It has been a while since I have posted on this forum, but I thought I would tell you all about my new favorite herping accessory: the digital recorder.

I recently received a small, relatively inexpensive (< $100 US) Olympus digital voice recorder as a gift. Since the amphibians started breeding here in SE Michigan, I have been making digital recordings of some of their calls. While my recorder is not professional quality, it can make nice recordings of frogs as long as I am relatively close (<3 meters) to the frog, and there is not a lot of background noise (e.g. no wind, no heavy rain). I can put the recordings on my computer, on my ipod, or send them to friends and families. While I have many of the commerical CD's of North American frog calls, it is nice to supplement those recordings with the recordings I've made.

For all of you who like to get into the field and observe and photograph amphibians, I'd encourage you to think about adding a digital recorder to your field equipment - it is a lot of fun!

Mike

Examples are linked below; the recordings are all mp3 files.



spring peepers Pseudacris crucifer:

call




Wood frogs Rana sylvatica:


call





Single american toad (Bufo americanus - with gray treefrogs and other american toads in background):

call

Chorus of american toads:

call





Gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor - with american toads in background):

call

Re: useful field acessory: the digital recorder

Lovely photographs and sound recordings - thank you for sharing. I've been using a Zoom H2 digital recorder for a while. There are some photos and recordings half way down this thread.

Re: useful field acessory: the digital recorder

Hi John,

That's a very nice post - have you ever tried using your recorder to make a playback to another male call? For instance to see if he responds aggressively. I've tried with my current recorder, but I think the volume of the speaker is too low.

Mike

Re: useful field acessory: the digital recorder

My recorder doesn't have speakers, so the answer is no. Interesting idea though!

Nice idea. I have never recorded calls before, but I have imitated calls. I have had American Toad reespond to my crude imitation of their calls and my friend can whistle like a Peeper. It is useful if they stop calling and you are trying to locate them as they will start calling again pretty quickly.

Andy

A friend of mine who is doing research on Blanchards Cricket Frogs has played back calls. One theory she has is that all populations of BCF have different 'dialects'. There's a loop of all populations that play, and we did once get some responses to one section, but not the others.

Hi Andy, that is pretty neat. I have been able to successfully mimic a few frog calls, but much of the time I end up just scaring away the frogs.

Hi Kaysie, that sounds like an interesting study - do you know the spatial scale that your friend is studying? Mike Ryan and his colleagues published some very interesting studies in the late 80s / early 90s showing both that the calls of male Acris crepitans differed between populations, and that the females' ears were tuned in to calls that were slightly below the local mean frequency.

Mike

I would have to ask her, as I don't know the specifics of her studies (I just help with the dirty work). I know she has study sites which are scattered across Michigan (from coast to coast, in the southern part of the lower peninsula). It was very exciting, though, when that chorus of frogs piped up. She was visibly giddy.