Strecker's Chorus Frog (Pseudacris streckeri) is a seemingly uncommon frog from the South Central US. Although I have lived in their range for much of the last 25 years, I had never seen or heard one until spring of 2012. Finally I saw a report on a bird listserver of a chorus of them being heard after some heavy rains in Central Texas. I went out as soon thereafter as I could and managed to record a few. I have still never seen one!
Here is one of those recordings from that night. This is a solitary male calling from a roadside pond in Caldwell County, Texas.
The call is a series of bell like "tinks" repeatedly rapidly in succession. It sounds similar to someone striking a metal pipe with a hammer.
In this spectrogram you can see how each call is a upward short slurring "tink" with a series of harmonic overtones.
Choruses of Strecker's Chorus Frogs have been described as sounding similar to a squeaky, old, metal windmill turning rapidly.
Hopefully I will be able to add some more recordings and a photo (!!) next spring. (I cheated here by adding a photo that I took 5 years later just to have a photo on the blog entry).
© Chris Harrison 2012
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