Stewardship Garden

My citizen science projects and results

• Project Budburst
• Viburnum Leaf Beetle
• Monarch citizen science
• FrogWatch USA
• eBird
• Project FeederWatch
• Firefly Watch
• Great Sunflower Project
• Great Backyard Bird Count
• CNY Birds
• House Finch Disease
• My Bird Summary

My FrogWatch USA Results

Here are my FrogWatch USA results. When you submit your data, you indicate date and time, how much the wind was blowing (using an easy-to-use scale), the current temperature, and whether was raining during the 3-minute listening period or in the previous 48 hours. I submitted all this information, but I'm entering only the "Calls" data and the type of amphibian.

Since I'm monitoring only my own ponds, I know who's calling - American toads and green frogs - since I see and hear them all day (during their mating season only). If you monitor a natural area, there could be a greater variety to be identified by sound only since they ask that you monitor after sundown. The website provides information to help you identify the sounds you hear. The bonus is that you become tuned in to their sounds, which especially in the case of the American toad is quite appealing. In fact, we had heard their song before we knew what it was - we never would have guessed that the musical trill could have been emanating from our curmudgeonly-looking toads. It's nice to have these records since I'll know when to be listening for them in the spring. In fact, hearing our first toads singing has become the true sign of spring for us!

Key

T represents American Toad; F is Green Frog; P is Spring Peeper .

Calls: 0 = calls; 1 = Individuals can be counted with a space in between calls; 2 = Calls of individuals can be distinguished, but some overlap of calls; 3 = Full chorus, calls constant, overlapping.

Therefore, F-2, for example, means that during the 3 minutes I was taking data, I heard overlapping calls of green frogs, but they could be distinguished as individuals. Te means that there was a batch of toad eggs laid that day. Sometimes both frogs and toads were calling: for example, T-1; F-2.

NOTE: As will all science, recording that there were NO calls is just as important as recording the calls. Also note that while I'm not recording the time, temp etc., I did submit that information, and that can be correlated with whether there were calls or not. If the cell is blank, that means I didn't observe that day.

Last updated: 01/18/2010