Field Research
Each year, The Iowa Herpetological Society organizes a field trip to a county, and documents what we find there. Three years ago, we were asked to help Dallas County with this assessment. This will be my fourth year of working in Dallas County. I will be staying in this county until I can determine the status of several snake and turtle species, I have been unable to find, presently.
In addition, some of us do field research work in other counties, when we have the time to do so. It is important that we work with county conservation boards, as well as private landowners.
When we do this kind of work, no species are collected by anyone. We are just looking and documenting what we find. A find might be a range extension and/or a new species in a particular county, not documented before.
Information from each trip is sent to the county board, as well as the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Non-Game Division, unless the information provides no change from past history.
Personally, I will provide a Liability Waiver Form to any landowner that requests it, and allows me to work on their property. The work I do is independent and voluntary of county conservation boards, and the State of Iowa. I do notify the appropriate people when working in certain areas.
When I work at night for amphibians, I also notify county sheriff's departments. I get approval first from landowners, when necessary. Primarily, I work in roadside ditches for my amphibian research. Those of us working with non-game wildlife, appreciate landowners who allow us to access their private property. We do our best to leave the habitat as pristine as possible, while performing our missions.
Counties that need our assistence can contact me. We have Society members throughout the state we can notify, and possibly offer assistence.
While I have kept some amphibians in the past, my focus was more on lizards, aquatic turtles, and non-venomous snakes. A few years ago, I decided to work with tree frogs of the U.S. I started off with Green Tree Frogs, Barking Tree Frogs, and Cuban Tree Frogs. 
My intent is to work up to the more rare and beautiful exotic tree frogs of the world, in a few years. I also got interested in working with our two species of tree frogs, in Iowa: the Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor), and Cope's Gray Tree Frog (Hyla chrysoscelis) in captivity, and the wild.
I have numerous goals concerning Iowa's two Tree Frog species:
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Determine the ratio of the two species living together, at my research sites.
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Record not only their breeding call, but other vocalization calls as well, and what they mean.
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Know when and what time of night is prime breeding occurring, so females could be found and counted. I missed the entire cycle last year, for some reason.
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Egg and tadpole identification.
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Determine what tadpoles and froglets are eating in the wild.
- Challenge the theory that the two species can not be identified visually. I do concede that theory is true during the breeding season.
To help with this part of my study, I purchased two pair of Cope's Gray Tree Frogs, legally collected in Alabama. The common Gray Tree Frog is not native to Alabama. I have noticed that in captivity the Cope's Gray Tree Frog tends to keep a solid color from gray to green, or a mottling of colors, without a dark pattern as well. Color changes are used for camouflage on tree bark, as well as dead vegetation in the water. Can you see the two frogs on the tree bark?
During the breeding season, they are almost always totally green at night, in the vegetation. In the last photo, I am bent over the plants with a calling Gray Tree Frog. I used my full 12X camera zoom and flash, to take the photo. I also used my full zoom feature on my printer, as well. As you can see, the adult male frog is still relatively hard to see, especially if I had not centered it, in both directions.
