The thrill and the dangers of the Big Night

The spring migration of amphibians out of the woods and into vernal pools, where they can and will breed, has begun. 

Yes, it’s peeper season, one of the most exciting times of the year for observers of the natural world. About a week ago, the wood frogs and spring peepers added their voices to the crescendo of song from returning birds. 

Bethany Sheffer is the volunteer coordinator and a naturalist for the Audubon center in Sharon. She was out last weekend with photographer Jonathan Doster in search of wood frogs and spotted salamanders, making their way toward their breeding sites.

Vernal pools are large indentations in the ground that fill up in spring with snow melt.

“They’re coming to these pools because they are often safe havens for amphibian species,” Sheffer explained. “There are no fish in the pools, so the frogs and salamanders hope that when their eggs hatch, they can safely develop to adulthood without any fish gobbling them up. It’s a little magical haven for these animals.”

Wood frogs and spotted salamanders

At this early point in spring, “the two big woodland animals that are migrating to vernal pools are the wood frogs and the spotted salamanders,” she said. 

Male wood frogs are about the size of the palm of a human hand; females are a bit larger. Spotted salamanders can be as long as 6 to 10 inches and are black with yellow spots. 

“You can see spring peepers, the little frogs, on the move too but they’re less habitat-specific. You’ll find them in vermal pools but also in wetlands. Wood frogs and spotted salamaders we specifically associate with these vernal spools.”

The spring peepers will continue their sweet song into summer — although, as Sheffer points out, when there is a large population of the small frogs, their song can be almost deafening. The wood frogs, she noted, have a distinctive and deeper song, “like a strangled turkey.”

But they’re all singing for the same reason, which is essentially that they’re “advertising” for mates, Sheffer said. 

The season for laying eggs

The frogs will actually couple up, or engage in what’s called “amplexus.” The first thing they have to do is chase each other around the pond to figure out who is male and who is female.

Then a male frog will grab the female from behind and hold on, sometimes for hours, until that female lays her eggs, “which the male will shower with his sperm.”

The salamander males act a bit like postal workers: They attach little packets of sperm, which look like bits of white Styrofoam, to leaf litter or twigs or anything that will anchor them to the bottom of the vernal pool. Then they try to entice the females to pick up their spermatofore packet. The females will absorb the packet into their bodies, where the eggs will be fertilized. 

While the wood frogs, salamanders and peepers are out now, other creatures will soon be on the move as well. One notable one is the tiny red eft, which will eventually grow into an eastern newt — although they can remain in the red eft stage for several years. 

“Their larval stage is aquatic but after that they come onto land,” Sheffer said. She cautioned that “they’re poisonous at that stage. A human is large enough that we’ll probably only feel a skin irritation from picking one up, but they can be hazardous for a predator animal such as a raccoon.”

The dangers of the migration

The great amphibian mating migration (which many naturalists refer to as Big Night) begins usually with the first warm spring rain, when temperatures have hit the 50s. In the Northwest Corner, there is often a frost that follows the initial thaw; the amphibians seem to survive it, in the same way that daffodils can usually survive snow after they’ve started to bloom.

What is harder for the traveling amphibians is the danger of cars driving over them. The animals usually travel at night, when traffic is lighter; but they’re hard to see and of course it takes them a while to get from one side of a road to the other. Conservationists often talk about the importance of not building in the path of migration, and especially of not putting insurmountable curbing on roads that will keep the short-legged creatures from being able to get to their breeding sites. 

Some people will go to roadside spots that they know the amphibians will traverse; they will stand at the roadside and do traffic control, asking drivers to stop and wait so a creature can get to the other side.

How to help but not hurt

Sheffer said this is an admirable thing to want to do but she hesitated to offer locations where volunteers might go. The helpful impulse can end up harming the animals, either if people drop them, squeeze them or contaminate the amphibians’ thin skins.

“It can be fun and interesting to pick these animals up,i f you feel moved on a rainy night to see one and try to move it to other side of road,” Sheffer said, “but it’s important to mention that their skin is slimy, there’s  no protective barrier like feathers or fur. Make sure your hands are clean and don’t have hand sanitizer on them or that you haven’t just filled your tank and have gasoline on your hands; they’ll absorb it right through their skin. Be aware of where your hands have been. You might have something in  your car like stiff paper that you can use to scoop the animal up onto, and use that object to move it.”

There is also a danger of people collecting the animals for “the pet trade,” especially the salamanders, which Sheffer describes as “charismatic and beautiful.”

A salamander can live for as long as 20 years in the wild, Sheffer said. 

Wood frogs don’t have quite as long a lifespan, but they’re not, she said, like insects, which breed and die.

Anyone who’s interested in helping these animals to live their full life span can go online to the Harris Center in Hancock, N.H. They’ve created the Salamander Crossing Brigade, which has some outposts in other areas of the country. They have a booklet in PDF form with information that you can find at www.harriscenter.org; search for “volunteer materials.”

The “charismatic” and beautiful spotted salamanders are now crossing area roads as they move toward their breeding sites in vernal pools. Drivers are asked to be particularly mindful after dark so they don’t drive over the amphibians. Photo by Bethany Sheffer

Wood frogs were singing  their throaty, distinctive songs of love last week when the warm wet weather created the right conditions for the spring migration from woodland to vernal pools. Photo by Jonathan Doster

The “charismatic” and beautiful spotted salamanders are now crossing area roads as they move toward their breeding sites in vernal pools. Drivers are asked to be particularly mindful after dark so they don’t drive over the amphibians. Photo by Bethany Sheffer

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