A bevy of salamanders, including an interesting hypomelanistic specimen

 

Your narrator holds one of Dr. Thomas Pauley's many publications on West Virginia salamanders, while posing with the man himself.

For the past 20 years, I have given talks and led field trips at the New River Birding & Nature Festival in Fayetteville. The festival always takes place at the tail end of April/early May, and I highly recommend it. GO HERE for details. This is one of the most biologically rich areas in eastern North America. An interesting part of those biological riches are salamanders, and a few years ago, event organizers got Tom involved. This was akin to striking gold for some of us, and I've had the privilege of going on several nocturnal forays with Dr. Pauley.

This year was no exception, and a small group of us headed into the New River gorge on the evening of May 3. the excursion was even better as we had two of Dr. Pauley's proteges leading us: Josh and Tabitha Stover. They are extraordinary herpetologists, know where everything is, and are incredibly adept at finding secretive amphibians.

The New River gorge, near Fayetteville, West Virginia. It contains scads of interesting organisms, among scenery to die for. For this trip, we descended to some cliff formations down near the river.

A Green Salamander (Aneides aeneus) peeks from a fissure. For us Ohioans, this is a major rarity, and one must know exactly where to go. Down here, they are far more frequent, and we saw many this night.

A Kentucky Spring Salamander (Gyrinophilus porphyriticus) watches us from its lair. We saw several, including one whopper that must have taped out at ten inches. It was a bit wary and backed into his fissure before we could photo-document the mini-monster.

A Seal Salamander (Desmognathus monticola) has a look around before emerging. This is one of the most common species in the area. When we arrived, not long after nightfall, it was dry. Salamander hunting is far better after showers have moistened the ground, and lo and behold, after a bit it started to rain. We couldn't have coordinated the weather any better: after 20 or so minutes of fairly light showers, the precipitation stopped, everything was soaked, and a previously hidden army of amphibians emerged.

My Marsh Blue Violet (Viola cucullata) shot was photo-bombed by another Seal Salamander. Look closely in the bottom right of the image.

A gorgeous Northern Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus) poses for the camera. Handle one and you will see why they are so named. Sticky skin secretions smack of Elmer's glue. The gloss black base coat liberally peppered with white freckles makes for a very showy creature, though.

We were understandably pleased - who would not! - to see several fine specimens of Red Salamander (Pseudotriton ruber). They are not uncommon here, but generally special efforts must be made to see one. Note the yellow irises. A similar species also occurs, but in lesser numbers, the Mud Salamander (Pseudotriton montanus). It is also bright orange-red and flecked with black spots but has brown irises. It is also well-named, spending much time in soupy mire.

A Wehrle's Salamander (Plethodon wehrlei) marches across a rock. While perhaps a plain jane compared to some of the previous species, it is a handsome creature with its snub nose, big eyes, and delicate saffron flecking. This is another common species in West Virginia, although herpetologists have long noted regional variation in the species. One of these variants has much larger golden spots, so much so that it suggests a Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum). It was described as a separate species in 2019 and dubbed the Yellow-spotted Woodland Salamander (Plethodon pauleyi). Note the specific epithet of the scientific name: pauleyi. It is named for Dr. Thomas Pauley. A fitting honor for West Virginia's leading herpetologist!

Yellow-spotted Woodland Salamander has a very limited distribution in Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. I hope to make a trip with Josh Stover later this year to see it, and if so, will report on that with imagery afterwards.

Your narrator, while bumbling about, came across this strange-looking creature, which I thought to be a Wehrle's Salamander, but it didn't fit the mold. Not knowing what to make of it, I called Josh over and he instantly recognized it as a hypomelanistic (abnormally pale) Wehrle's Salamander. None of the rest of us had even heard of such a thing, and apparently this was the first record for the New River Gorge, although Josh says there are pockets of them elsewhere in the state.

All in all, it was a wonderful wet night of salamander hunting, with many interesting finds. I returned to my abode at midnight, dreading the 5 am wakeup the following morning. But well worth the loss of sleep, and I look forward to future West Virginia salamander forays.

Big thanks to Josh and Tabitha Stover, and Tom Pauley, for teaching us about these interesting creatures!

Blue-winged Warbler bags large caterpillar

 

A Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora cyanoptera) foraging and singing in an American Hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana). I got to spend about 15 minutes watching the colorful animal hunting, which is entertaining. Blue-winged Warblers are quite active when feeding, and suggest chickadees as they flit through the foliage, dangling acrobatically to snare insects. I was witness to an impressive bag: a very large prominent moth caterpillar, which is in the second image. Unfortunately, no clear shots could be had of this operation. The warbler took the victim to a nearby horizontal branch and proceeded to beat the larva violently by whipping it into the twig. When the cat was suitably mushy, it quickly swallowed the lepidopteran stew. A photo of the warbler with its victim is below. Shawnee State Forest, Scioto County, Ohio, May 7, 2025.

White Slantline Moth on Mayapple flowers

 

A colony of Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) resembles a bunch of little green umbrellas thrusting from the forest floor. I photographed this colony deep in Shawnee State Forest (Scioto County, Ohio) on May 7 (2025).

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Fertile plants bear a gorgeous waxy-white flower that arises from the node where the two leaves diverge. The flower is often concealed by the leaves, at least to the upright observer.

It's worth going low to inspect Mayapple flowers, as they sometimes harbor a bit of Lepidopteran magic: White Slantline Moths (Tetracis cachexiata) that resemble the petals, and roost on the flowers during the day. Sometimes several moths can be found on one flower. In short order, I found three White Slantlines - all in separate Mayapple colonies - and surely could have found others had I continued the search.

PHOTO NOTES: I shot the last two images with (as always) my Canon R5 camera, and the amazing Canon 180mm f/3.5 macro lens. This lens was made from 1996 to 2021 and it is one of the sharpest lenses ever made. It also absolutely crushes the background, creating beautiful, creamy bokehs, as can be seen in the last two images. I like its longer reach, as it provides more versatility in how and where one can set up. The 180mm does not have image stabilization, and I made the above image at ISO 200, f/9, and a slow 1/13 exposure. Therefore, a tripod is important, and I have an Oben CTT-1000 carbon fiber tripod. It's miniature, going from ground level to perhaps a foot in height. Perfect for low subjects, and great for stabilizing the 180mm in low-light conditions. That lens also has a tripod collar, so it can easily be rotated while on the tripod.

Swainson's Warbler

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

A Swainson's Warbler shot from last week in Fayette County, West Virginia. In this region, these warblers typically frequent large tangles of Great Rhododendron, and catching even a glimpse in those thickets can be very tough. This bird occupied a deciduous forest opening and was much easier to see. I kept tabs on him for a half hour and could even watch his sparrow-like foraging behavior: using those big feet and large bill to turn leaves on the forest floor. This warbler is one of the rarest of the 38 extant species of eastern North America breeding warblers, with an estimated population of about 140,000 individuals. As a point of comparison, the Connecticut Warbler, a species much coveted by birders, has a total population estimated at about 1.8 million birds.

Red-eyed Vireo harvests tent caterpillar nest silk

Apologies for the lack of posts of late. I just returned from my annual foray to the wilds of West Virginia to participate in the New River Birding and Nature Festival. While there, I led trips for six days, then Shauna came down and we had an epic trip into the Monongahela National Forest yesterday. There we made many photographs of a variety of interesting organisms, some of which will probably surface here later.

FYI: The New River Birding and Nature Festival takes place late April/early May, and this was its 23rd year. This region of southern West Virginia is exceedingly rich in biodiversity, including birds, and our trips fan out to a variety of habitats. One of the main targets for many people is Swainson's Warbler (I'll try to make a separate post about that later), and the Fayetteville area (where we are based) is an epicenter for them. See more festival details HERE.

While leading the trips for the festival, I take next to no images and only carry my iPhone and my Canon R5 with a 24-105mm lens. The latter of which is used primarily to get group shots, and maybe some habitat images. As a guide, one must remain on point the entire time on the field, and prioritize helping group members get on birds, and learn more about natural history. There isn't time for taking images, although sometimes I experience some inner agony when we see amazing things and I cannot commemorate them photographically. But I get as much enjoyment out of seeing things and learning more about them as I do creating images.

With that in mind, the following photograph is shared courtesy of one of our participants on last Saturday's trip, Carisa Collins. She uses a Nikon point & shoot with an amazing reach and does a superb job of capturing images of various bird species that we see. The story and photo follow.

Photo courtesy Carisa Collins

Last Saturday, Geoff Heeter and I led a trip into the Summit Bechtel Reserve, a massive scout camp property near Fayetteville, West Virginia. We saw many interesting birds, but a personal highlight was seeing this female Red-eyed Vireo (females select nest sites and build the nest) collecting silk from an Eastern Tent Caterpillar (Malacosoma americanum) nest.

When we saw the bird approaching the nest, I thought the vireo was going to raid it for caterpillars (they are the bulk of a Red-eyed Vireo's diet). That would have been interesting, as the only birds that I know of that routinely raid these nests are cuckoos and Baltimore Orioles. Tent caterpillars are heavily beset with spines that inhibit most birds from eating them, and when in their silken nests are well protected from avian predation. Big cuckoos (both Black-billed and Yellow-billed) can rip into the nests and ravage the occupants. While a cuckoo may swipe a captured caterpillar back and forth across a branch in an attempt to remove some of the spiny hairs, they do end up swallowing many, and it is said that dissections of cuckoo specimens have revealed that the stomach linings are liberally fuzzed with hairs that penetrated the lining. I have heard that cuckoos can essentially regurgitate the stomach lining if it becomes too choked with tent caterpillar spines, and can regrow a new one, but haven't verified that.

Less well known is that Baltimore Orioles also feed on tent caterpillars. I made a post back in 2014 about this, with plenty of documentation. See that post RIGHT HERE.

Anyway, the vireo that is the protagonist of this story was only interested in the nest's silk, and she had to struggle to separate the wiry cable-like material. She'd tug and tug and tug before successfully separating a tuft of silk. It'll be used to bond her intricate cuplike nest.

Many people despise tent caterpillars - a native moth - because of the nests which they consider unsightly. That's a very shallow uninformed viewpoint. It is a native moth, the nests do not kill the host tree (cherries), and they spawn scores of insect species that prey on the caterpillars. Many of those insects, many of which are parasitoid wasps, in turn become food for other animals. The adult moths serve as pollinators and are eaten by other animals. Bats, who prey primarily on moths, surely eat many  tentworm moths. And now we know that Red-eyed Vireos - which winter in South America - utilize their nests. Eastern Tent Moths are a major keystone species with far-reaching importance when bird predators are factored in. Both Black-billed and Yellow-billed cuckoos, and Red-eyed Vireo, winter deep into South America, and Baltimore Orioles winter throughout much of Central America, northern South America, and the Caribbean islands. The lowly eastern tent caterpillar is an important part of their life cycle.

A "weedy" yard

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

A big patch of Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia) brightens my backyard. The white flowers sprinkled throughout are a form of this species known as the Confederate Violet (V. sororia forma priceana). I have encouraged violet proliferation by just not mowing them off while in flower, so they can set fruit. It's worked well and I've got scores of purple jots brightening the turf grass that remains. How this native violet could be considered a "weed" is beyond me (although a "weed" is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose). Moreover, spraying toxic chemicals to destroy them, in favor of a flawless emerald blanket of nonnative turf grass is crazy, in my opinion.

I made this shot of this Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) last April in one of my violet patches. I've seen these woodpeckers in the violets a few times, and I suspect they are hunting ants. Ants are major dispersers of violet seeds, and ants are a major part of a flicker's diet. If having a "weedy" violet-filled lawn means flickers, I'll take it.

This scene is even cooler than the violet explosion, to me. This area is the back half of the backyard (roughly one-quarter to one-third of ALL my remaining "yard"), and not so long ago it was all nonnative turf grass. About four or five years ago, I noticed clumps of a native sedge called Common Wood Sedge (Carex blanda) popping up back here. This is one of our more opportunistic native sedges (there are a few nonnative sedges) and I don't know how it got started here. It may be that I tracked back seeds of the sedge from one of my forays. No matter, it is there, and I adjusted the mowing regime to accommodate it. I just waited until the fruit (perigynia, in sedge-speak) were fully ripe, and then mowed it. The mower broadcast the hard, bony seeds (achenes, in sedge-speak) all over the place, and it worked. Now, 90+% of this part of the "lawn" is now native sedge. That's all I did.

In this shot, the sedge is in full flower. The tannish-brown spikes sticking up everywhere are the staminate (male) flowers. The pistillate (female) flowers are lower on the plant. The sedges only reach four or five inches in height. Unless I learn otherwise, there is no reason to routinely mow this area anymore. The sedge is the perfect height, in my opinion. I'll probably just mow it once annualy, late in the season. At least that's my plan for now. I'm also going to transplant some of the sedges to other parts of the lawn and hopefully get the entire backyard to become a blanket of Common Wood Sedge, interspersed with other various native flora.

While the sedge lawn may, to some eyes, look a bit coarser than the manicured nonnative turf grass that we've been programmed to plant, manage, and cherish, I think the sedge lawn is a vast improvement. Another benefit is that invertebrate life forms have spiked tremendously. The sedge forms a duff layer that seems to be far more conducive to animal life than that of sterile turf grass. One barometer of success is the sheer number of fireflies displaying in summer. Last year they had expanded to the point of dazzling. It was like a laser light show back there. Viewing them from a second-story window reveals that the displaying beetles stay almost entirely over my backyard, with little drift into the neighbors' yards (most of them manage for turf monocultures). Firefly larvae are ground dwellers and predatory, feeding on various small animal life. I would say that the sedge supports vastly more of a duff layer food web, thus the huge spike in fireflies.

If you'd like to shrink your lawn, experimenting with Carex blanda might be worth a try. I haven't researched where one might obtain it, but I think some native plant nurseries carry it. Try googling "Carex blanda nursery" or something like that, and you should find some sources.

Large-flowered Bellwort, and some plant photography thoughts

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

A Large-flowered Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora), a personal favorite spring wildflower. This plant was long placed in the lily family (Liliaceae), but taxonomic splits in that family have led to the bellworts being placed in the Colchicaceae family, and apparently now it's been shifted to the Convallariaceae family. Wherever we humans decide to place it in our organizational schemes, this is a superb-looking plant.

Shauna and I made an epic trip to southern Ohio last Saturday and saw many species of spring wildflowers. We were mostly in Adams and Scioto counties, where the spring flora comes on significantly earlier than here in central Ohio. We were pleased to encounter many flowering specimens of this bellwort species at the Chalet Nivale Preserve. I find bellworts photographically irresistible and the specimen in the photo was in a particularly good spot for clean imagery, other than being hard to reach.

Shauna snapped this shot of your narrator making the image of the bellwort in the previous photo. It is not far from the base of the limestone cliff, right at my eye level.

While macro lenses are often standard fare for wildflower photography, I went off the reservation for this one. One, that slope was slippery, and scrabbling into position to shoot the bellwort with my 100mm macro lens would have awkward and probably hard on the other plants emerging around the bellwort. So, I bolted the Canon 400 DO II lens to my R5 and attached the rig to my big tripod (A Gitzo, with Wimberly head). While I normally use that tripod and the big lenses for birds and other wildlife, I discovered a long time ago that the big lenses can be superb for plant photography.

With no disturbance to the habitat, using this rig allowed me to get my lens at eye level to the subject. Even though the bellwort was too far for macro photography, I could frame fill it with this lens. As the subject is vertically oriented, I rotated the lens within its collar for a vertical perspective. The position that I liked best put me just inside the minimum focusing distance of the lens, which is about 11 feet. So, I slipped on a 25mm extension tube, and that problem was solved. FYI, in case you aren't familiar with them, extension tubes are just short hollow tubes (no glass) that fit between the camera body and lens. They create a bit more distance between lens and camera which reduces the minimum focus distance. I would highly recommend getting tubes with electronic connectors, so that they don't kill your ability to autofocus.

Once positioning the camera was accomplished, it was time to shoot. Another enormous asset of large prime telephoto lenses is the gorgeous creamy bokeh (background) that they create. Even though that cliff wall wasn't very far behind the subject, the 400 DO obliterated it into a grayish-brown blur. I helped that by shooting at f/5.6. In general, wider apertures are better, in my opinion, for floral subjects. Even though the 400 opens to f/4, I decided I liked the slightly increased depth of field by stopping down one stop. The shutter speed was 1/60, plenty fast enough. But shutter speed is largely irrelevant in plant photography. I have shot multiple second exposures and achieved tack sharp results of wildflowers. As there was a bit of wind this day, I chose to use a slightly higher ISO than normal and set that to 400 so that my shutter speeds could be a little faster than they would be at my preferred ISO of 100 or 200.

Another way to help freeze movement would be the use of a flash. For me, that's almost unheard of with plants. I think flash generally imparts a harshness to the subject and its environs that looks bad. I can assure you, that had I used flash on the bellwort pictured above, it would not look like that, and the look would be worse. I know there are ways to mute lighting from flashes, and I have all manner of diffusers. And corrections can be made later through editing. Nonetheless, flash-free images just look much better to my eye.

To further assist in removing possible movement caused by me, I had the camera's shutter on two-second delay. I also have the R5 set so that a touch of the rear viewing screen will instantly focus the camera on the spot that you touched and automatically start the two second delay. So, I just tap the bellwort's flower in my back screen, move away from the rig, and the camera focuses on the flower, the camera starts beeping and two seconds later it takes the photo. There's no way that I can accidentally bump or otherwise jostle the rig.