The beaver pond at the end of the road

Part of my recording tour of the southwest with Lang Elliott this spring took us to Big Bend National Park.  From a westerner’s perspective, this is the end of the earth.  It’s a long, long ways from anywhere, even by Texas standards.  But this remoteness, incredible topography, and habitat diversity make it a good spot for nature recording.

After a cold, cloudy morning in a motel in Van Horn, Texas, we made our way to the Panther Junction visitor center for a backcountry camping permit.  By the time we got there, the clouds had disappeared and temperatures were starting to warm.   When we arrived at our campsite, with no shade anywhere in sight, it was getting downright hot and would hit 104 degrees before the day was over.  We did our best to shelter from the sun, but it was still a long, hot afternoon.  I kept a close eye on Shadow to make sure he wasn’t in distress but, perhaps because he was from Phoenix, he managed with shade and inactivity.  We were the only ones at the small campground that afternoon, and it was really quiet.  No sounds from autos or airplanes, just the buzz of insects and occasional bird twitter.

As evening arrived and temperatures dropped a bit, Lang showed me a beaver pond near the camp that he had found on a previous visit.  Beaver ponds tend to be great places to record as there is usually a lot of wildlife activity.  The beaver pond was along Terlingua Creek, not far from the confluence with the Rio Grande River. 

Just upstream from the beaver pond was a dense riparian area, full of cottonwood, willow,  and ash trees – another very promising recording location.  I set a mic near the beaver pond, and both of us set up mics near the riparian area to run overnight.  The night was breezy, so results weren’t as good as we had hoped.

The next afternoon we avoided the camp sweat-fest by hanging out at a cantina in the tiny town of Terlingua.  In addition to shade and cold beverages, it provided free Wi-Fi so we could catch up with the outside world.   In late afternoon, I returned to camp, while Lang set microphones in other areas of the park.  I was dismayed to find a group of very noisy campers had arrived, and had their music going full blast.  Just before dark, I set my mics out in roughly the same places as before, although the the first few hours of recordings were ruined by the loud music.  But once they finally turned down their music, a lovely quiet overtook the area, punctuated by the soft trilling of crickets and occasional calls of night birds.

The recording by the beaver pond was lovely.  Below, I’ve compressed about 6 hours of recording to 8.5 minutes, encompassing the last of the darkness and the beginning of the dawn.  There are a lot of subtleties in this recording, so please use earphones.  Then close your eyes, and imagine yourself sitting on the bank at the edge of the pond.  It’s dark, but the reflections of the stars shimmer off the pond.  Crickets trill softly and you can hear the fluttering of bats as they hunt mosquitoes over the pond.  A coyote calls in the distance and a Rio Grande leopard frog occasionally croaks or squeaks.  A couple of beavers are nearby, one in the water, and one on the bank chewing up a willow.  One startles at something, but the other keeps chewing.  When the dawn is little more than a promise, the first birds start to call.  Light starts to slowly fill in the shadows and buzzing flies start to replace the trilling crickets.  As the sun hits the walls above Santa Elena canyon, more and more birds start singing.  A new day has begun.

With this episode of the blog, I’m starting a new feature called “Critter of the Month.”  Here, I will provide a little more information on one of the animals featured in the recordings.  This months Critter of the Month is the Rio Grande Leopard Frog (Rana (=Lithobates) berlandieri).  I first heard them at that beaver pond along Terlingua Creek, although I would later hear them at a couple of other locations in Texas.  I was enamored with the variety of creaks, croaks, squeaks and growls they emitted.

Here is a recording of a Rio Grande leopard frog chorus I recorded at Chaparral Wildlife Management Area, near Artesia Wells, Texas.

Rio Grande leopard frogs found not only in the Rio Grande, but though suitable habitat in most of southwest Texas and adjacent Mexico, extending to Veracruz.  They are also found along the Pecos River in Texas and southern New Mexico.  They have been introduced to Arizona, filling in areas formerly occupied by lowland leopard frogs (Rana yavapaiensis) along the Gila River from Phoenix to the Colorado, and along the Colorado into Mexico and north to the Imperial Dam.  They’ve even made their way to the Coachella Valley in California.  They have moved into tributaries and agricultural areas along the Gila River.  In Arizona, they appear to be expanding their range.

They occupy streams, ponds, springs. and stock ponds, although can move away from water during summer storms.  They feed primarily on insects, but also anything else they can stuff in their mouths, and in turn, are preyed upon by garter snakes, turtles, birds, fish, and humans.  They are active year-round, and breed in spring and fall, although populations in warmer areas may breed year-round.

For more information about frogs and toads, I highly recommend Lang’s book, The frogs and toads of North America (with C. Gerhardt and C. Davidson), Houghton Mifflin Press, NY.

There is more information about Rio Grande leopard frogs at these links:

https://tucsonherpsociety.org/amphibians-reptiles/frogs-toads/rio-grande-leopard-frog/

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Lithobates_berlandieri/