E. Nebraska Herping- Small Victories!

So, a bout of insomnia and a severe case of boredom sent me out day herping. I decided to ask permission of a landowner to walk the creek that runs across his property.
It took quite a bit of conversation to convince the guy I am not a morel mushroom hunter, merely a different flavor of geek. So, the agreement was this: Come on down and take pictures of critters all you want, but do not take pictures of the property or terrain. Again, he wants to keep the mushroom hunters out...

So, excited to stretch my legs in "uncharted territories" I set off. We have had very heavy rains and true consistent warm temperatures this week, so there was quite a bit of activity. Also, by coincidence, I had purchased myself a new camera strictly for such an excursion just a few hours before...

It is a cheap one, but it does what I need to do.

I also decided to test out one of my "inventions", a field photo box.


I made this box out of clear Lexan, painted a few sides white, and then re-engineered a battery operated fluorescent lantern to light it up. My inexperience with photography brought this about, as it takes me a bit to figure out exposure time and speed and the like. This box lets me control the animal safely for a photo shoot, and yet leaves me time to get my settings correct.

It was a frustrating start down the creek bed. Six steps into it, I found a dead Leopard frog. I did not photograph this as it was a bit depressing. I did flip the corpse over with a stick to discover a long laceration running the full length of the lower jaw.

Next I scared what could only have been a bullfrog, alas the water was a bit too deep at this pool for me to fish him out and get a picture.

About fifteen minutes later, I heard the distinctive call of yet another Leopard frog. I let my ears do the work and zoned in on him. He lept into the water and I grabbed for him, but missed. He swam under a tuft of overhanging grass, so I reached in to grab him. I missed him entirely, but got this little guy instead:

Looks to me to be [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Acris crepitans[/FONT], the Northern Cricket Frog. After I was done taking my shots, I released this little guy and then wiped down my box with Chlorox wipes, followed by a good air drying and a rinse with bottled water.

Here is another shot of the same critter:



Now, this next guy has me a bit confused. He kind of lacks distinctive dorsal markings to my untrained eye, but there are small stripes on the hind legs, and that hint of orange along the ventral side of the "thighs". He is just short of 2 inches long. Interestingly enough, I found him when he jumped out of tall grass and on to my pant leg. I suspect he is another cricket, but am unsure.




By this time I was a mile down the creek, and probably on the wrong side of the property line, so I headed back. After stopping to thank the owner, and show off my pictures, I headed home.

Satisfying trip for me it was. Finally after a month of failure, at least I saw something!

Tomorrow, I am spending the entire day out in the field with an early 0400 start!

Interesting stuff. Everything looks Acris to me. Good luck tomorrow, I'm counting on you .

Saturdays update:

Not much luck, but hit some new sites once daylight hit.



Pond formed by flooding three years ago.





Very old oxbow pond. Very far inland from current path of river.



This was an excellent herping spot last year, but as you can see, the landowners flood control efforts destroyed it. Even the bullfrogs are gone from this site.

I did see a few critters though....sadly nothing I was after...yet....


Cattle pond overrun with Bullfrogs, and this HUGE Chrysemys picta marginata.