Strecker's Chorus Frog - finally!Pseudacris streckeri

I had never really thought much about Strecker's Chorus Frogs (Pseudacris streckeri) when I lived in College Station, Texas during the early to mid 1980s.  Frankly, at that time I had little interest in frogs and toads in general and was more interested in snakes than any other herps.  My only real exposure to the existence of the species was seeing preserved specimens that I had to learn to identify for my herpetology course at Texas A&M.
After I returned to College Station after finishing my Master's degree, I was contacted by two individuals who needed Strecker's Chorus Frogs for their museum collections and asked if I could capture them a few specimens.  So I made a note to start looking for them while I was out and about in the area.  That was sometime in 1992.   Twenty-three years later, I finally found one!
I have several other blog entries on here about previous failures.  I had heard them on multiple occasions in both Texas and Arkansas but had never laid eyes on one of the little buggers.  But finally, on March 9, 2015, I was able to find some Pseudacris streckeri calling where I could actually see one.

And here is that frog:

I got a few other photos of individuals calling in the flooded grassy roadside ditch that night.  I didn't bother catching any for posed "field guide" type shots.  That may be a decision I may regret since it took me so long to find my first individuals!
The odd thing was they weren't that inconspicuous.  On previous occasions (notably this night in Arkansas) I had been near larger numbers of individuals all around me, but never sighted one.  Part of the problem in the past was that I had to wade into the water to find them and the vibrations/waves of me walking in the water may have been making them dive for cover.  On this night in DeWitt County, I was able to see them while standing on the muddy edge of the flooded ditch without disturbing the water surface.

Here is how most of them were found, floating in the water clutching grass clumps.

One individual let me get a bit closer before my disturbance of the water washed him off his grassy perch.

Here is an individual from the night in question -

Pseudacris streckeri - single individual from DeWitt County, TX

And a recording of a chorus from the same area -

Pseudacris streckeri - chorus from DeWitt County, TX

And here is a brief video of a couple of these little songsters singing.  There is a bit of wind noise in the second part and some Hurter's Spadefoot Toads (Scaphiophus hurterii) in the background  -

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© Chris Harrison 2015