The Most Glorious Big Night

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.

MLIC (My Life Is Camp)

The end-o-summer transition away from camp is never easy. Sure, there's always bird count and there's always small camp reunions throughout the year, but nothing can compare to a magical summer at Cooper's Cove. However, this summer marks a new transition: leaving camp for good (wow, writing that was really hard). For the past two years, and I could go so far as to say the past eight years, my life has been camp. My summers there are a huge part of my identity. I shape my experiences during the entire year around camp. If I pick up a new skill or learn a new fact, I always think about how I can apply it to working at The Cove. I tell camp stories to anyone who will listen, and I tell them even if they won't listen, oops. I look through old boxes of memorabilia and read through old journals and look at pictures and reminisce about all the hilarious things that happened in the collective memory of camp. And then February comes around and I get to work on (or craft) the camp application and fully let myself get excited for another summer, because Spring is right around the corner and camp comes after that.  Camp camp camp, how many times can I write 'camp'?

And now, suddenly, my time working at the best place/job in the world has come to an end. I'm 24, and finally ready to acknowledge that I want to gain other experiences during the summer. I've started a new job in the environmental education field, and it's exciting.

And yet all I want to do I be able to return to camp. I want to take all of the activities and tricks that I've learned in training here in Georgia and apply them to my morning workshops at camp. I want to go back to the comforting schedule of Reflections before dinner every day, and an Inspection Report at lunch, the Bird List at dinner, and Ashokan Farewell at the end of Folklore Night. I want my hair to smell like pond, and I want to be able to recognize by sight which logs will definitely house a salamander (I can't do that log thing at this new place and it's driving me crazy).

Maybe those things are the exact reason that I shouldn't go back. I need to push my comfort zone, I need to grow more, I need to leave what I know to try what I'm wondering about. I grew up and became myself at The Cove, and I learned more than I could ever fully articulate in this blog post. I've learned enough to fend for myself elsewhere, I hope. It breaks my heart to not go back in the same capacity, and the last few weeks have been rough because of that feeling of loss/ of feeling lost. I think that as the season here gets busy and the end of summer gets farther away and hopefully new opportunities loom, I will have an easier time of it. But for now, bear with me on my continuing trip down memory lane.

Speaking of, here's a picture that Vini sent me today of young camper Annie, catchin' bugs. #tbt

Mushrooms and amphibians and cabins, oh my!

I moved to camp on Thursday, and by now I think it is safe to say that I'm settled in. At least, I have enough damp clothing and rodent-chewed fabric to show that I've been here a while.

I'm feeling lucky about quite a few things regarding my current living situation.

1. Free room and board-- always fun to have, and we eat quite well. Roasted turkey and mashed potatoes one night, baked chicken and fresh-picked morels another night... mmmm mmm. We took a couple of hours off from work to hunt for morels on the hills, and we found a good number of them.

2. Close access to salamanders. I can just turn over pretty much any log around and find them-- it's been super rainy and perfect for sals! Stay tuned for way too many pictures of salamanders.

3. Sharing a cabin with my friend Bridget. We live in Heights, aptly named for how it's the the farthest cabin up from the lodge. It's my favorite place to live at camp, because it has a big porch with a swing, and because I feel like I'm sleeping outside. We get lots of deer, spider, flying squirrel, and moth visitors.

My pet cactus isn't as happy about the living situation-- it had been super cold and wet-- not a good time to be a cactus. But tomorrow is May, so all hope is not lost.

April salamanders

It would be too difficult to summarize my amphibian/children/friend packed week in a blog post, so here it is - salamander style.


Part 1: I was in Maine helping my dear friend Lucy with her amphibian camp. Many salamanders to be found!

We counted spotted salamander egg masses in various ponds and vernal pools on MDI

Caught stream salamanders (two-lined) in Mill Brook at the Cox property

Found two headless spotted salamanders...

We also found frogs. And on my last night in town Matt showed me some live spotted salamanders hanging around in some pools. What a relief! Spring without holding a real spotted would have been disappointing.

Part 2: Opening weekend at the Cove - could not leave until I thoroughly searched the stream for salamanders. Of all addicting pastimes, I feel pretty OK about this one.

Not sure what species- maybe dusky.

Northern red

Dusky

Long-tailed. My favorite- hands down.

Tomorrow I will begin my journey to lands with no salamanders, so I'm very glad to have spent some quality time with these guys this past week.

Next up: Reptiles in Arizona!

And on leap years there are 29!

I actually have no reason for a post, except that it's a leap year so... that's important.

I'm just gonna post a picture of a salamander, because in 10 days I will be Costa Rica with all sorts of amphibians and reptiles and everything else in the tropics, and I cannot wait!

Summertime done, come and gone my oh my

As much as I like it at here, the transition of camp to home is never easy. Especially because I'm supposed to be packing what I need for the next 4 months but all I can do is daydream about the wonderful summer that just ended. My flight to Arizona is at 7 am tomorrow, and then my semester in the desert will begin! I'm excited now-- now that my time isn't taken up with tasks, goodbyes, cooking for 50 people (including 28 ridiculously picky ones), workshop planning/ teaching, and breathing in the last bit of Cove air.

Sunrise on the way down from the Bald. Plus the moon!

Junior session went well-- lots of adorable messy campers who really help you remember the wonder and awe that can be found at the Cove. Every mushroom they find is the coolest thing ever, and spotting a Red Eft can make their session. We found a Red Eft in the lodge while we were closing camp. Its toes were covered in lint and watching it walk was even cuter than usual!

Salamanderz

I thought I should have some sort of nature blog post, since I do work at nature camp/ bug camp. Plus, I cicada nature!


On a slightly nature-related note, here is my favorite picture from 2nd session's final exam: The Great Race! Staph vs. Campers. We prepared for it with quite the rigorous training regimen (intimidation + lunges with biology textbooks + flexing zee gunz).

Pulling chara and WINNING!

Anyway, back to nature. Salamanders! I've been having a great time searching for them in our stream this summer after taking herpetology. 1st session I had camper projects about salamanders, and I am siked to teach about them at 3rd session as well.

This is a long-tailed. Except that you can't see the tail. But I swear it's there!

I believe this is a northern red, but a juvenile because it's not super dark yet.

This is not a salamander, but a pic of The Bald at final ceremony! It was a gorgeous night.

Stay tuned for more salamander pics! I maybe take too many. But they are sooooo cuuute!