Big Night… the most magical two words of all time… except
for maybe Harry Potter. All of the Spotted Salamanders and Wood Frogs and other
amphibians crawl out of their burrows on the first wet and warm (ish) night of
spring and make their way towards vernal pools (I just taught a lesson about
this and probably said this line 10 times today at least). Anyway, I’d been
dreaming of this night since I arrived in snowy New England this January. The
Spotted Salamander is in my Top Three Favorite Salamanders Ever count, and
they’re just so big and chunky and cute and the best… eek.
See?
This year we had a very strange winter, with a lot of false
alarms. We had our first wet and warmish night at the very end of February, in
fact. The pools were still mostly frozen, but still a few brave salamanders
marched over to find mates. I waited sort of patiently for the next warm rainy
night, but it never came. Instead we got below freezing temps for a few days at
the end of March! Luckily, April showers on April Fools Day brought the most
epic Big Night I have ever witnessed. I went to Maine for the weekend, and luckily spent the night
with fellow herp-enthused friends who were totally game to go out herping at
midnight when we got back from a concert. We found So. Much.
Everywhere we looked in the pond there were five or so spotted sals flitting up to the surface to nab some air or just say hey. They were quite easy to catch, so I probably held/cooed over a dozen. And I will go our to the pond here a Bear Brook as much as possible over the next few weeks and just hold amphibians and all will be well.
Here I am with Lucy, all dressed for a night of herping.
Searching for salamanders is sort of a frenetic/ compulsive activity for me at this point. Obviously it’s really enjoyable too, but when I search at night I end up looking like this hunched over pond gremlin fishing around with my hands and poking myself in the eye with branches and grumbling and scouring the surface of the water and flipping over logs and scrabbling in the leaf litter. I probably have crazy eyes. But it’s worth it, lemme tell ya.
