Underwater World
While these little white puffs may look like little air pockets escaping from underwater volcanoes they are actually little spermatophores, or sperm packets produced by male spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum), scattered across a vernal pool floor. As females arrive and enter ephemeral pools (sometimes up to a week after the males), males go into a frenzy. Typically the ratio of males to females in the pools is very skewed, with many males to every one female. This fuels some pretty intense male to male competition and very interesting sexual selection. Males surround females and nudge...
Read MoreSpring Migrations Have Begun!
So I’ve got a bit of a funny story for you and it goes a little something like this: last Thursday night, as we suspected, warm overnight rains began to draw spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum), spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer), and other amphibians out from their winter refuges. They began their journeys to nearby vernal pools, but some of them took detours in the process. My husband Tyler and I were house and pet sitting for my parents while they were on vacation. Behind their home is a series of ponds that make up a beautiful wetland system, and vernal pools are abundant...
Read MoreCould Tonight be the Night?!
Tonight’s conditions are looking promising for amphibian migrations to begin as overnight temperatures will be above 40°F and rain is on it’s way. While humans don’t like to be out much during rainy nights, salamanders and frogs use these evenings to migrate in mass to their vernal breeding pools. With that said, be on the lookout for these special species whether you are hiking or driving and give them plenty of space as they make their way from their wooded hiding places to their watery breeding grounds.
Read MoreVernal Pools Poking Through
Last weekend as we were out surveying for HWA in Dobbin’s Woods, a beautiful Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy property, we came across several little pools beginning to form in the depressions of the landscape as the snow increasingly melts back. While these pools aren’t too attractive for us to throw our beach chair next to, they are extremely important to a number of amphibian species. In the upcoming weeks these small pools will serve as little nurseries for salamander and frog offspring to safely develop from egg-y masses to free swimming larvae to land conquering tetrapods....
Read MoreTurkey Devouring Bittersweet
What a Thanksgiving feast this Wild Turkey enjoyed! While we almost always expect our flocks of turkeys to be feeding on the ground on seeds, invertebrates, or even amphibians and reptiles, they can sometimes find food in other places. They do fly, after all! If you have never seen a group roosting in a tree in your yard or quickly taking off I recommend you keep an eye out for it because it is always a spectacle. In this case I watched a few of them in a tree feeding on bittersweet berries… What a resourceful bird! There is a reason their population has exploded across the Northeast...
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