There is a magical event that happens in the early spring. No one knows what triggers it and no one knows exactly when it will occur. It’s a surprise. Don’t you just love surprises? It is a secret trek of the Spotted Salamanders to their breeding pools.

Vernal Pool in New Jersey

In what seems like impossibly cold weather, these amphibians have waited underground for the first warm evening spring rain. Warm being a relative term because it is still only about 45 or 50 degrees. But without fail, as the rain falls, spotted salamanders come up from their underground burrows and march sometimes by the hundreds, to vernal pools where they’ve been breeding for decades.

Vernal pools are shallow depressions in the earth where water collects in the spring but dries up by late summer or early fall. Salamanders will not breed in traditional ponds where predators such as fish loom.

Male spotted salamander. Spots are unique like finger prints.

Male salamanders migrate to their breeding pools and hang out in bachelor groups called congregations. But when the females arrive, the party really starts. 40-50 Spotted Salamanders gyrate, rub against each other and rotate their tail in hope of attracting a female’s fancy. If all this foreplay works, she’ll follow him out of the crowd as he swims away. He’ll then deposit a gelatinous sperm packet called a spermatophore. The female will trail him and pick up the spermatophore in her genital opening thus completing fertilization. Within a few days, she’ll deposit 2-3 jelly-like balls with 50-100 eggs in each. The egg sacs resemble snowballs that are attached to underwater sticks. After completing this task, both male and female adult salamanders leave the pool and return to their underground burrow until next spring.

The egg sacs remain underwater for 5-6 weeks when they hatch into tiny, gilled tadpoles. After feeding on small aquatic insects through the summer, the tadpoles metamorphose into miniature adults and leave the water by the fall.

See this Philadelphia Inquirer article where Pam from Nature by the Yard is quoted on ways to attract wildlife to your yard in the winter, including placing a “nature-trimmed” Christmas tree outside.
Link to article.

It may not feel much like spring, and the calendar may say it is still a 5 days away, but spring has definitely sprung around here. Spring can be very subtle, and you need to be cued into the clues, but, if you look and listen carefully, you will soon discover that the seasons have changed.

On a recent trip to the bank, I noticed the branches of the silver maple lining the road had a distinct fuzzy appearance. I pulled over and discovered they were in fact blooming. Many people don’t realize trees bloom unless they are obvious like dogwoods, but maple trees are in full bloom now.

Another tip that spring is here has actually finished already. Just 5 days ago, the wood frogs were calling in the vernal pools of Five Mile Woods. With the first spring rain, the males make their way to these temporary pools and start calling. The females follow shortly after. You may have mistaken their calls for quacking ducks, but they are small woodland frogs that wake, call, mate, lay eggs and leave all within a two week period.

Thousands of jelly-like eggs are laid by the females while the male clasps her from behind and fertilizes the eggs as they come out. Also calling, and they will continue to do so for several weeks, are the spring peepers. These tiny tree frogs are no larger than a man’s thumb nail, but their loud whistling peep can be heard up to a mile away.

The last amphibian to wake from spring is a silent one. Along with the woodfrogs, the spotted salamander remains underground most of the winter. With the first “warm” spring rains, they migrate, sometimes in mass, to vernal pools. Males congregate first, followed by the females. Their courtship, though brief is very interesting, but hasn’t happened yet, so I’ll save it for another post.

Get outside and discover spring before it is too late.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on it for years now. What exactly is that smell? Last Sunday, it was a warm day, but there wasn’t that smell; the smell of spring. This morning, I went out to drive one of my sons to school and there was something in the air. It just smelled like spring. The birds must have felt it too. A Northern Cardinal was singing his song “popcorn, peanuts, chiiiiiippps” instead of calling. The House Finches were singing too. On my way to work in Princeton, I had the sun roof open and I heard the Pe-ter, pe-ter, pe-ter of the Tufted Titmouse song.

Skunk cabbage Symplocarpus foetidus is blooming along the stream. It has such a high metabolic rate, it actually melts the snow and ice around itself. No need for that today.
While on a walk with a group of preschoolers this morning, a honey bee was out looking for early bloomers. I don’t think she found any, but I sure enjoyed seeing her out.
I hope you got out to enjoy and smell the day. I know it won’t last. They’re calling for snow on Saturday, but it is a nice tease knowing nature still remembers how to be warm.

On Wednesday morning, I dropped the boys at their respective schools and headed to one of my favorite places, Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve. I knew the perfect snow that fell the night before would soon begin to melt and I wanted to get to the Preserve to photograph the wintry scenes. I wasn’t disappointed. There was about 5″ of it and was the perfect consistency. Not too heavy, not too light, just right to cling to branches, boughs and pine cones. The sweet gums that persisted on the trees looked like they had little dunce caps perched on the top of each one.

The sun was just coming over Bowman’s Hill and already, by 9:30, it was starting to melt the snow. Huge clumps of soft powder were falling from branches. It was like having a snowball fight with an invisible giant who could pelt you from above without knowing where it was coming from.

It was so quiet at first, but as I walked, the woods seemed to awaken. Canada geese flew over, their huge wings and their incessant honking were audible in the quiet of a winter morning. I watched a gray squirrel scurry down a tree, go directly to a particular spot, dig up an acorn, scurry back up and eat it. I’ve read gray squirrels only find about 1% of the nuts they bury, but they do sniff out other squirrels’ stashes.

The sky was so clear, it almost hurt my eyes to look up. I saw a flock of snow geese flying over head and I couldn’t change to my zoom lens fast enough, so I just took a shot of them with my regular lens. Tiny white specks in a crystal blue sky.

Pidcock Creek was frozen, but I could hear and see the water running under the ice. In a tree limb hanging above the creek was a bald-faced hornet’s nest. Long since abandoned, it held a pile of snow on top like a hat.

The time slipped by really fast, and I found myself rushing to get back for an 11am appointment. I hope all of you took the time to get out and enjoy the snow. Even if just for a few minutes. Snow reveals secrets you never thought could be right around the corner.