Hello!

It has been a very dry spring--one many would choose, eager for the warmth and beautiful rays of sunshine to follow this gray winter.
I, too, turn my face upward and draw it deeply in, yet it is not as it should be--
for this season is one of wetness.

I walk through the brown, dried, tangled grasses of the field, into the woods surrounding Wood Pool, shallower and already less wide than last year, my boots tossing the light, crisp leaves ahead of each step, scuffing along the dry trail.
And I wonder how they will walk here, tender bodies, without the softness left by rain.

Several males are already in Little Pond Pool, from journeys days ago, when light rain over warm earth released them to walk to this water. Each night I spent watching and waiting by the trail at midnight, hoping to meet them before losing them into the darkness of the pool. And, though I see their spotted bodies flash and turn below the water’s surface, it does not feel the same to find them already here.
I miss the walking.

Perhaps because this remarkable migration defines them.
Gathering these solitary beings for just several days into small pools of spring rain.
From adjacent fields and woods, acres beyond these borders, across roads and fences, they will return home.
Then, again, go off to disappear below the ground.

This evening dark clouds brought a beautiful rain.
And the grass glistened and shone brightly in the beam of my flashlight. I turned my face upward and drank in the damp night air.
And it was as I had hoped—
a salamander rain.

Spotted Salamander. Ambystoma maculatum, female
walking to Little Pond Pool
March 8, 2009

Another male (?)

Is there a sweeter, smiling face?

Spotted Salamander, female


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The Hidden Ones

I walk out to the pool each morning—the night’s frenzy so foreign, so shrouded.
Hoping to see better, in daylight, what lay hidden last night beyond the beam of my light. The quacking of Wood Frogs and piercing calls of Spring Peepers have gone with the night, though they are still here, replaced now by the raspy voices of Chorus Frogs, tucked away in the stems of plants peeking above the surface at the water’s edge.
With one step, they, too now are quiet.

Last night I stood in the same spot, within this ring of grass, a dense mat covering the bottom of the pool. Easing apart the tangled stems with my toe, careful not to tear into their world like ripping into a prize, I gently step in, and wait, still. Clusters of spermatophores shine as white flecks against the dark floor all around. Though I see nothing, they are here.
Beneath the layers of decaying grasses and leaves, the salamanders are moving.


Nocturnal and soft-bodied, from their world under ground, walking great distances under cover of night, into this water of their birth, they have returned only to breed, and leave.
No scales, no claws, no teeth--
their only defense, the darkness.

I lift my flashlight from the surface, muffling the beam under my jacket, restoring their night.
And soon, they emerge beyond the tip of my boot,
snatching a quick breath at the surface before disappearing into the black again.
The hidden ones in these spring waters.

(photos enlarge with click)

Spotted Salamander, Ambystoma maculatum, male

Vernal pools are seasonal basins of water essential to the reproduction of several amphibian species unable to breed in ponds, creeks or rivers, where fish would feed on their eggs.
Because they are often seen as nothing more than low, unattractive, swampy areas, these important habitats are drained or filled, destroying them and the unseen animals that depend on them as breeding grounds.
Studying these areas at night for a few weeks in the spring reveals the vulnerable lives often unnoticed at any other time of year.

On a warm, spring night

On a warm, spring night, I stand,
under darkness brought by the clouds, heavy with rain,
feet touching cool water, clear and still,
to hear the hundreds of small voices,
propped just above the water’s surface.

Spring Peeper, Pseudacris crucifer

Clinging to small stems,
toes strongly wrapping,
or broadly floating ahead of each step,
with eyes that glow like jewels from across the pool,
they welcome me with song
into their midnight madness.

Northern Leopard Frog, Rana pipiens

Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica

In all these others,
there is but one that is silent,
watching me,
with the gentle face
and sweet, small velvet feet
that I adore.


They have come home.

Spotted Salamander, Ambystoma maculatum, male
Little Pond Pool, Butlerville Ohio
March 5, 2009

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The Dawn of Spring

The only one up in a darkened house, I walk through the dim halls softly. As the sun is still many hours off, and doors closed where the others still sleep. It is this time before dawn, that I love best, before the pace of the day quickens. And in the quiet of this time, though I cannot see them, I know they are there, beginning to stir--
waiting for the hush to be lifted.
For every thing I know and love,
for now, I must remember.


The brown outside is all around--still, lifeless and waiting.
The tiniest hint of green barely showing where flowers soon will be. Beyond the flattened grass of the lawn, the garden lies as a yawning space, dark soil on which to plant.
On the hill we wait.
A night of heavy rain has knocked out the power again.

I walk slowly out, across the soft, saturated ground, past resting fields of brown grasses. Moon covered deeply in clouds, my single light scanning broadly.
Am I the only one here?
I step carefully back, into the protection of the evergreens, through to the shallow pool where I know I will soon find them and peek quietly in.
Just below the surface, only ice.
They are not yet here.
But in this warm night air, I sense their stirring, salamanders waking, just below the surface, waiting for this hush to be lifted.
For every thing I know and love,
for now, I must remember.

Last spring I monitored 2 vernal pools on our property and found that 2 species of mole salamanders use them as breeding areas. I witnessed Spotted Salamanders, Ambystoma maculatum, migrating there at the end of March, but missed the Jefferson Salamander, Ambystoma jeffersonianum, migration weeks earlier. This year, I'm hoping to catch it.
It is not known exactly what triggers mole salamanders’ movement from underground, where they live and eat until hibernating through the winter, to these pools of their birth for breeding each spring. It is thought to be factors including ground and air temperature (a 3-day mean temperature above 42 degrees), loose water within the soil (from heavy spring rain), a reversal of the soil temperature profile (surface becomes warmer than subsurface) and darkness (clouded, moonless night). Jefferson Salamanders are known to walk through snow and enter pools as soon as ice melt opens an edge.