It warmed up into the 50's yesterday with a little rain, so Chia and I decided that it was time to go out salamandering!!! Our buddy Matt met up with us at the Mentor Lagoons...a spot that I frequent year round. There are some nice vernal pools here, and the woods are gorgeous as well. I'm sorry that I didn't take my camera out with me yesterday, but lugging around that bag of bricks on my back EVERYWHERE I GO gets old sometimes. I feel so free when I'm exploring the woods carrying nothing. Plus I can act more like a wild animal : ) Jump higher, climb trees easier, and just manuever quicker in general. If I wasn't a human, I would be a gibbon monkey ; )
Anyway...for a while we didn't have much luck with the salamanders. We had found one egg mass (later to be determined as Small-mouthed Salamander) and plenty of spermatophores stuck to leaves and twigs in the pools. A brief lesson on mole salamander breeding: Mole salamanders spend most of the year underground and under logs...they only come out when it is time to breed (for most species this occurs in early Spring after/during warmer rains). The males will usually get to the pools first and deposit the spermatophores. Females show up later and fertilize themselves with the spermatophores, then lay their eggs. The eggs are stuck together in a gelatinous mass, and the typical number of eggs in a mass varies by species. The babies will be born a few weeks afterwards...I will have a follow up blog on that once it is occuring and I will hopefully accompany my text with some wonderful pictures...I finally ordered my macro lens that I promised myself I'd have by Spring this year : D
No salamanders til this point, but then we had some luck. I was drawn to this huge beautifully twisted and gnarly Silver Maple on a mound of soil in the middle of a flooded pool. After taking my time admiring the structure of this old hollowed out tree (that was still very alive), I looked down and saw beautiful bright yellow spots! A Spotted Salamander was just sitting on the base of the tree not moving at all. Matt and Chia rushed over to get a look at our first salamander of the year. What an exciting moment : ) From here on out, there will be many "firsts" of the year and I am so ready!! Chia got some nice photos of the mac (Ambystoma maculatum) so maybe I can get him to send me a few photos from the day to accompany my blog. Here's one of me in the tree...
Rewinding, before the Spotted, I watched a male Wood Duck leaving from a Maple tree with a nice cavity (I didn't actually see him in the cavity) so I am hoping that he will get a mate and they will nest in it. The spot is jotted down in my mental notebook, so I will keep tabs on it! Other bird sightings included A Cooper's Hawk, a Red-shouldered Hawk fly-over, and some of the usual suspects (Titmice, Chickadees, Cardinals, etc.)
Oooh! I almost forgot! While flipping logs searching for salamanders I found a Hairy-tailed Mole! It was a first for me, I got to watch him run around in and out of a few tunnels for a minute before he disappeared. When I saw it I instantly noticed the odd-looking tail, and as soon as I got to a field guide to identify it, I figured it out. Seeing a new species for the first time is always a memorable and exciting experience : ) I tried to get Chia over to get some footage of it, but he didn't make it in time.
Matt ended up going home, and Chia and I moved to another section of woods to continue our salamander search. I had my eyes trained down all day, and when I looked up after hearing a cracking noise in front of me, I was surprised to see a male Pileated Woodpecker just chipping away at a tree no more than 20 feet away!!! It was so awesome, you usually don't get that close to them! Once again, no camera...sorry! It is crazy how much of a "photographer" I've become, I never figured that it would be this way but I am always thinking of my next photos or how I wish I had my camera in the rare occurance that I didn't bring it. I try to tell myself just relax and take in the moment, but it doesn't always work that way...anyway...it was still wonderful to watch him so close : )
Speaking of cracking, we heard and saw a pretty large Beech tree fall while we were in the woods! That makes two trees that I watched fall. It's pretty cool. This one was probably about 30" diameter.
Finally at our last pool, Chia's hard work of sweeping his net for hours paid off. He came up with two Small-mouthed Salamanders (Ambystoma texanum). This was the missing puzzle piece because we had found the eggs and spermatophores prior. We wanted to go back out tonight, but the snow pretty much cancelled that for us, so I will be back into the pools as soon as we get more rain : )
Chia and I headed out of the woods just in time for Chris to meet me in the parking lot. Chris and I then headed over to the Zimmerman trail...I just can't be outside enough : ) Since it was almost 5pm, I figured we could go peek around by the Beaver lodge that is over there and see if we could see any action. There are also a pair of Great-horned Owls (possibly nesting) in the area so we figured we might see or hear them too. No such luck though with either. We had a nice little hike, and heard and saw mixed flocks of Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds, and the best prize for that hike was the resident pair of Bald Eagles perched in one of their favorite areas along the Northwest edge line of the woods along the marsh. They seemed pretty tolerant of us and we watched them for a moment and basically left them alone. It's nice when wildlife cooperates, especially when you don't have your camera. Getting a chance to watch actual behavior instead of behavior in the presence of predators (us).
I think I'm about done writing about my wet day in the marsh, but much more to come on amphibians in the next few weeks!! The way I see it is salamanders, frogs, waterfowl, wildflowers, birds and so on!! From here on out Spring has begun in my book and the fun begins : ) Hopefully you can get out and witness the beauty and nature's seasonal specialties for yourself!
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