Spring amphibians: they slither, they hop, they are small and slimy, and they are important to Norfolk’s ecosystem

By Susannah Wood

We’d been watching the weather, and Monday night, April 7, looked like it might be good—about 40 degrees and wet. Wiley and I set off at 10 p.m. with flashlights and rain gear. The thermometer read 38 degrees, 2 degrees less than optimal. Driving at 5 miles an hour along Westside Road, we peered into a misty rain looking for the small humpy shapes of frogs, a gleam of white belly, or the bright yellow markings of spotted salamanders.

I shouted, “There! I think itís a frog!” Wiley stopped the car, and I got out to examine a tiny frog with the distinguishing black X on its back. “It’s a spring peeper,” I called, ferrying it to the east side of the road. While trying to handle it very gently, I managed to deposit the nearly comatose frog upside down on a patch of pine needles. I righted it, But it was unable to muster the muscle power to hop. We continued on, stopping for a number of chilled peepers. The night was just 2 degrees too cold for salamanders and wood frogs.

Richard Conniff, writing in the New York Times, noted the important niche salamanders occupy in forest ecosystems. By preying on small invertebrates that feed on leaf litter, they may play a significant role in keeping the carbon in leaves from entering the atmosphere since uneaten leaves take their carbon with them as they turn into soil. Other studies indicate that salamanders are under threat from climate change. They are diminishing in numbers and decreasing in size.

In preparation for the Natural Resource Inventory published in 2009, Norfolk volunteers found over 80 vernal pools with breeding populations of amphibians. These fishless pools are essential habitats for mole salamanders as well as for wood frogs.

Along most of Westside Road on wet, warm nights in early spring, peepers, wood frogs, and various salamander species make it their business to get from their upland habitats to wetlands and vernal pools to breed, crossing roads all over town to do so. Wood frogs are less tied to moisture for this migration, and by mid-week, with night temperatures above 40 degrees, their weird duck-chuckles could be heard from vernal pools and marsh edges all around town.

Friday, April 11, would turn out to be the first big night for salamanders. Tom Burr and Bill Dobbins rescued 18 spotted salamanders along Westside Road, and more in the vicinity.

So far this seems to be a pretty good year, at least for wood frogs. Water levels are high. In one vernal pool close to Tobey Pond, I observed many more clusters of egg masses than Iíve seen in several years, while the flooded borrow pit at the North Swamp Trail behind Botelle School contained over 100 egg masses in the sunny shallows. Wood frog eggs are easy to see: communal clusters of jelly-like blobs dotted with black embryos floating in a sunny place near the surface.

If you want to visit a vernal pool, look just to the left of the gate beside the Grantville Road entrance to the Norfolk Land Trust Mad River Trail. Keep dogs out of the pool, and if you are wearing sunblock don’t handle the eggs.