Hello Arizona! First weeks on the River

So I have been employed by the State of Arizona to chase ghosts.  Basically my job for the summer is to try and locate two species of frog that have only been seen a handful of times since the 60's on the lower Colorado River.  One of them, the lowland leopard frog, hasn't been seen at all on the main part of the Colorado River in decades, but randomly on a Refuge that seasonally drains into the river.  If you ask me I don't really think that counts, but I'm not the one supplying the money. 

We have completed one survey session to this point, and no target species.  But the scenery on this section of water was rather nice...

This lil stream just kinda works its way around the desert peaks towards the Colorado River.  It never actually makes it though.  This time of year it dries up a few kilometers away.  It actually was growing shorter by several yards every day we were on it.  The further up stream we went though, where the water was permanent, it started to take on an "Apocalypse Now" feel.  I kept looking over my shoulder for Marlon Brando and Hendrix came up all to often on my ipod, for a random shuffle.



Ya it looks fantastic.  You have to keep telling yourself its gorgeous as you wade up the water 3.5 miles carrying 25 pounds of gear, another 45 pounds of funnel traps in 105 degree heat.  Oh and watch the beavers, they will swim right through your legs (ya true story).

No target species this trip, did see lots of other amphibians.  This stream was absolutely full of native Arizona toads and red spotted toads (sorry no pics :( ).  This was nice to see since most of the rest of our study sites are filled with introduced bullfrogs.

We were putting out non-lethal funnel traps for frogs and tadpoles to get a sampling of the species diversity here.  One animal that did turn up in the traps a lot was crawfish.  Now crawfish in AZ are introduced as well, and can make a mess of a healthy ecosystem.  So as standard protocol we... "dispose" of the crawfish whenever we get the chance.  Well the last day we checked traps my field tech and myself had an eureka moment.  "What the heck are we doing wasting these crawfish!?!?"  This is a spring fed stream with rarely any visitors!  So the last day we fashioned a carrier out of a broken funnel trap, a pot lid, and tie wire and collected and carried out all the crawfish from that day.  We ended up with at least 30.  Dropped the make shift cage into the cooler and when we got to our next camp.... BAM impromptu crawfish boil!  Didn't have much in the way of seasoning, but not bad for spur of the moment.  And I felt a little better about the "disposal," since I disposed of them in my belly.

I did spot this guy one morning. 

I was glad to see him (ya I'm odd).  Until this buzztail the only rattler I'd seen was on a golf course.  Really? A golf course?  This state is supposed to crawl with rattlers and the best I can do is a golf course?  Regardless, I was also excited because this is an animal I've never seen before, the Speckled Rattlesnake.  He was pretty quiet and cooperative while I snapped these pics.

The one good part about this particular project, is there is PLENTY of water to look for the frogs.  Hopefully I'll find my ghosts