 |
The Poweshiek Skipper Project | |
| Lake Hawthorne ©Rayford
Ratcliff
Introduction Information about the butterfly
O.
poweshiek, Legacy butterfly Legacy
of Chief Poweshiek
H.W. Parker's writings Von Blixum's Heroic Experiment
Iowa's
biological diversity
The Poweshiek Skipper Project |
Amphibians For several years the Iowa Department of Natural
Resources Wildlife Diversity section has conducted frog and toad
surveys. This is a "citizen scientists" type of
program.
One of the advantages of citizen scientist projects is that they promote involvement with the natural creatures that are being studied. Participants, like I was, learn a deep appreciation for the organisms that they are involved with. There are web sites where you can download the calls of different frogs, and here is one of them: http://www.nwf.org/FrogwatchUSA/frogs_state.cfm?showstate=ia The photo on the top right is a cricket frog, Acris crepitans--a very small warty frog that is common for the time being in Iowa, but which has all but disappeared from some surrounding states. The frogs on the left are gray tree frogs Hyla cinerea that were parked out under a porch light, just waiting for supper to come to them. |
They
send out a cassette tape that hadsthe calls of all of the frogs found in
Iowa, and a bunch of data sheets. The volunteer selects a
few sites to survey, then goes to those sites at specified times (shortly
after dark) and record the number of frog calls heard.
I
participated in this project many years ago. I remember being
frustrated with parts of the process--I had weather that did not
cooperate, and as a result I found low numbers and few species.
However, I did learn to recognize several of the frog calls, and that
has given me great pleasure. In our property we have five species
of frogs that show up every year, and I love laying in bed at night with
the window open and hearing them call.