A lone, male coqui frog was captured at a home on Kumuhau Street in Waimanalo Tuesday night after residents were alerted by the loud noise coming from the tiny amphibian.

"I thought I heard a bird singing," said Kumuhau Street resident Wendy Hayler. "It was just loud and shrill, and it was in the night time."

Male coqui frogs emit mating calls that rise to 73 decibels or more, and have caused property values to drop on the Big Island, where they have become an established pest.

However, reports of coqui frogs on Kauai, Maui County and Oahu are far from rare. Officials with the Hawaii Department of Agriculture say at least 20 coqui frogs have been captured on Oahu since the start of the year.

"It's been really busy this past month," said Derek Arakaki of the HDOA's Plant Pest Control Branch, who's also a member of the Oahu Coqui Working Group. "Almost weekly, we've been getting calls."

Luckily, Tuesday's coqui frog hunt on Kumuhau Street took only a matter of minutes.

"That took like ten minutes," said Aaron Works, a pest response technician with the Oahu Invasive Species Committee. "That's about as well as it can go."

According to a November, 2011 report to the Hawaii Legislature, there were 16 reports of coqui frogs on Kauai from July 1, 2010 to June 30, 2011. A rapid response team with the Kauai Invasive species committee was able to capture 12 of the frogs by pursuing tips from local residents.

For the same time period on Oahu, 16 coqui frogs were captured at homes, while another 42 were caught at nurseries in Waimanalo and Hawaii Kai.

Meanwhile, the report said eleven coqui population centers on Maui were wiped out, and another two sites were moving toward eradication status.