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Last Updated:
Apr 21st, 2005 - 21:10:55
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The Travels of our First Webmaster
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Voices of Spencer Creek
Long before sunny shirt sleeve weather, you can tell it's spring by looking down at the ground in the wet woods or by streams. The amphibians are on the move again and the frogs are calling.
Two weeks ago, while piling brush brought down by the New Year's Day storm, I found a large Ambystoma gracile under my feet. She was not squashed, as we were both in several inches of water, leaf mold and mud, but she was definitely in danger from the chain saw and wood piling activities of my companions. The salamander was most certainly making its way from the woods behind our property to our pond. This first sighting was a signal that I should be careful everywhere, as these lovely critters appear in the most unlikely places in the spring while they are migrating to water to breed.
The egg clusters of these Northwest salamanders are very beautiful when I find them attached to the stems of the red osier dogwood and Nootka rose which have collapsed into the pond. The eggs, 30-60 in a cluster, are in a thick mass of very clear jelly. Each egg, if it hasn't developed too far, shows a dark animal pole and a much paler vegetal pole. Later, the masses will become bright green with alga, but I believe this doesn't signal disease. Robert C. Stebbins in Amphibians of North America, describes the alga in the egg cluster as quite normal. I like to think the alga performs a role in protecting the embryos from too much ultra violet radiation.
Two days ago I nearly stepped on a female newt in the woods. Though not the first of her kind I had seen this year, she was the first female, as the males of the species Taricha granulosa emerge from their winter retreats under rocks and litter on the forest floor as much as a month before the females. As the weather warms, I will delight in seeing many newts swimming slowly at the shallow inlet end of the pond and know by the ripples they make on the water's surface, that they are swimming in the deep water too. I am embarrassed to say that I have never seen a newt egg, but others who have found the eggs have told me that they are smallish, laid singly and attached to vegetation in the pond.
Today I was standing on the hill with my sheep staring down at the pond, which is very full. It has been raining softly but steadily all day and the water is a little turbid. The great blue heron has already flown. He disapproves of my pushing carts around or of my being anywhere near the pond for that matter. The resident mallards are far more tolerant. I worry about them. Where are they going to nest safely this year? Their secluded home in the cattail swamp has been completely flattened by the winter's snow. Will the new cattail shoots be tall enough to hide the nest when the eggs are laid? Another cloud of gloom presents itself. The elodea, which was accidentally introduced with some pickerel weed [that long gone, prey to a horse's illicit and nocturnal foraging] is a dark cloud beneath the surface of about three quarters of the pond.
With the sun and warmth of spring, it will cover almost all the water that is not covered with water lilies or cattails. Last year we decided that we were too old and too worried about harming the larval amphibians to spend another Labor Day weekend manually removing literally tons of elodea. Now our pond will be fast on its way to evolving into a swamp, and we will lose our lovely summer view of trees reflected in the water. But wait! For the time being there is cause for rejoicing! There are many, so many, more than ten, masses of frog eggs along the banks and even in the open waters of the pond. I do not know what sort of eggs, whether they were laid by red legged frogs, Rana aurora, or tree frogs, Hyla regilla. Both species live at our pond, and from a distance it is hard to tell the difference between the two types of egg masses.
Red legged frogs spend all year in or around the pond and breed as early as January. The tree frogs start when the nights become warmer, about a month later. The nights have been lovely with tree frogs calling for over a week now, but I remember seeing four egg masses in the pond more than two weeks ago. Perhaps I am now seeing egg masses of both species now.
Hyla's common name "tree frog" is odd. These little, 1 and 1/2 to 2 inch frogs, which can be bright green or dull brown or shades in between, live not in trees but in the grasses brush and bushes around ponds and even in vernal pools and roadside ditches. They are widespread all over the West from British Columbia to Baja California and west to Montana. For years we have had a frog living under our deck finding its water from the slight leak in the hose at the faucet. Three years ago one decided to become a house frog and lived in the plants in our living room window. It was quite vocal, but that was not why it suffered repeated evictions.
We were afraid it would become dehydrated or be eaten by the cat, but in the end it died of determination. Last summer, attempting entry yet again, it was squashed and mummified in the door jam. Everyone was very sad. We miss our frog. This summer I shall leave geraniums close to the door and leave it open in the mornings. Perhaps we'll get lucky, or more likely, the house will fill with flies, but around here amazing things can happen.
Visit Ms. Kimmel's other articles at West By Northwest.org:
The Last Wilderness: Can the Whales Be Saved in Time?
Spring, Birds, Frogs and West Nile Virus
Catkins, Mushrooms and Water
© Copyright 2000-2004 by West By Northwest.org
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