Salamander (mega) migration!

In this part of the world, amphibian enthusiasts pay close attention to the weather at this time of year. Towards the end of the day, yesterday, it was apparent that Wednesday night would produce the warm rainy conditions that are conducive to salamander migration.

The annual run of the salamanders trumps all, so I and a photographer friend met up at 8 pm and headed to one of central Ohio's best vernal pools. Smart move - it was a river of salamanders.

Upon arrival to our destination, there was a light drizzle and the temperature was 60 F. Perfect, and it didn't take much exploring to see that moisture-loving critters were moving en masse. This is a crayfish, rearing up among the leaf litter and threatening me with its pincers. I often see crayfish moving overland in such conditions.

Amphibians were the primary quarry and we weren't disappointed. Upon exiting the car, chorusing spring peepers could be heard, along with lesser numbers of western chorus frogs. These tiny frogs with their toe-capped suction cups were all over the place. This is a chorus frog, blending well with the bark of an oak.

The spring peepers blew any and all other noise-makers out of the water. As we neared the vernal pool, the noise grew in intensity. Standing along the verge of the pond was nearly painful, so loud and shrill is the collective mass of singing frogs. A barred owl had been calling fairly close by - and you know how loud those can be. The peepers completely drowned out the owl. I never fail to be amazed by the sheer volume of these Lilliputian frogs.

The spotted salamanders stole the show, though. We hit the BIG NIGHT, that's for sure. They were everywhere. Moving (carefully!) towards the vernal pool, salamanders would appear out of nowhere, moving through the leaf litter in an age-old spring ritual. A relentless drive propels the amphibians towards their breeding ponds, where male and female will meet and lay eggs. The adults won't remain long, but the larval salamanders will spend weeks growing and maturing in the pools.

A gravid female moves across a turkey-tail fungus-encrusted log. Many pregnant females were moving to the pools, which were filled with writhing and dancing male salamanders. The boys had already deposited scores of spermatophores in the water, ready to fertilize the females' eggs as they arrive.

Peering into the water was incredible. At times, 30 or 40 salamanders were evident in a tiny area, and everywhere one looked there were more. Extrapolating to the size of the vernal breeding pools, I figured there might be five or ten thousand of the animals, but who knows. Anyway, you shake it, last night was a major salamander-fest, and I'm glad that I was there to witness the spectacle.

Frogs put on show with singing, mating

Before it sings its distinctive throaty notes, a Western chorus frog puffs its throat pouch

COLUMBUS DISPATCH
March 30, 2014

NATURE
Jim McCormac

After the long, brutal winter, the spring explosion of frogs has been especially welcome.

March is the transitional period when Mother Nature struggles to throw off the shackles of winter. Bit by bit, the days lengthen, and warm and icy waterscapes thaw.

The frogs aren’t a species to be contained. With even the faintest hope of open water, frogs emerge from hibernation and set to song.

Leading the charge are Western chorus frogs and spring peepers. The two species create a distinctive wall of sound in our wetlands. The tiny peepers’ shrill birdlike whistles fill the air, and a vociferous pack can be heard from great distances.

Mixed with the peepers are the distinctive throaty notes of Western chorus frogs. The male puffs his elastic throat pouch to impossible dimensions. It is as if the inch-and-half amphibian has swallowed a golf ball. When fully engorged with air, the pouch looks about the same size as the frog.

Once primed, the frog issues a guttural creaking aria often likened to the sound made by running a finger down the teeth of a comb. Remember that metaphor and you’ll never mistake the chorus frog’s song.

Air temperature influences the speed of the frog’s song. On a warm evening, its notes zip along speedily. In cooler weather, the cadence slows significantly. If the thermometer dips into the 40s, the song barely sputters along, and individual notes can easily be discerned.

Successful songsters attract females, and the amorous couple locks together in an embrace known as amplexus. The freshly fertilized female then deposits gelatinous egg clusters on aquatic vegetation; each cluster contains as many as 300 eggs.

A week or so later, tiny tadpoles burst from the eggs. About two to three months after hatching, the tadpoles metamorphose into frogs and leave the water.

Except during the spring breeding frenzy, Western chorus frogs typically live on land and are hard to find.

April is the peak month to take in the spectacle of frog mating orgies.

In addition to the chorus frogs and spring peepers, several other species can easily be found. They include American bullfrog, green frog, and Northern leopard frog. American toads are often part of the scene.

All of these amphibians are common in most of the state.

Franklin County Metro Parks support many fine amphibian habitats.

A “Secret Swamp” hike will be held on April 5 at Slate Run Metro Park, and a “Frog Frenzy” program will take place on April 19 at Prairie Oaks Metro Park. Both should produce plenty of frogs.
For more information, call 614-891-0700 or visit www.metroparks.net.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

First amphibians of the year

A Western Chorus Frog, Pseudacris triseriata, sits in a wet pool, the upper half of his body above the water.

I should qualify the title of this post: First amphibians of the year (FOR ME)! This has been a brutal and prolonged winter, and even now, in mid-March, the frosty old man is reluctant to take back the snow and ice. Here in central Ohio, we've scarcely had any of the decently warm (50 F or above) rainy nights that amphibian-seekers pine for. It seems that the majority of frogs and salamanders have yet to make the vernal pilgrimage to the breeding pools, and individuals are just trickling in bit by bit - no massive migrations of yet.

Last night was one of the few warm evenings we've had, but it wasn't wet. Dryness inhibits major movements of amphibians; they much prefer to move towards breeding haunts when everything is nice and soaked. Nonetheless, I knew that at least some Spring Peepers and Western Chorus Frogs would be in the wetlands, and I really wanted crisp images of the latter for an upcoming column. So, I headed to one of my favorite amphibian routes near Bellefontaine last night, stopping first to pick up Bellefontainite and amphibian enthusiast Cheryl Erwin.

Sure enough, the peepers and chorus frogs were in good tune, but not in the numbers they soon will be. Just smatterings of individuals calling from wetlands where there should soon be many more, if the weather ever warms. This Western Chorus Frog is the same individual as in the first photo, just seen from another angle and while he was singing. The animal was issuing his guttural creaking trill regularly, counter-singing with another frog about fifteen feet away.

Getting images of singing chorus frogs can often be a challenge. They seem to prefer staying towards the interior of their wetlands, and that means out in the deeper water. To capture this animal on pixels, I waded into water that soon threatened to overtop my knee boots. After spotting the animal from about fifteen feet, I slowly crept up while he sang. Then came the cold, wet part. I dropped to my knees to get down closer to my subject's level, and leaned in close. Getting, of course, soaked in the process and filling the boots. Someday I'll resort to hip or chest waders, but somehow getting as wet as my subjects makes me feel more a part of the whole scene.

A giant Eastern Tiger Salamander, Ambystoma tigrinum, lumbers from the wet grassy verge of a large seasonally inundated wetland. We were quite pleased to find a few of these jumbos around one of their breeding haunts, but I don't think the majority have yet arrived. Tiger Salamanders prefer open grassy wetlands - not the wooded vernal pools of most of their Ambystomid brethren.

The vernal emergence and migration of salamanders will never cease to amaze me, and I get out as much as possible to look for them. There are usually only a few good nights when temperature and moisture are conducive to mass movements, and I'll hope to catch a better night within a week or two.

Fortunately, my favorite Tiger Salamander breeding site is along a road that floods out completely in a few spots, and has few houses along it. Thus, the vehicular traffic is almost nonexistent. Getting pancaked by cars is a real threat to these animals as they attempt to move overland to the wetlands. When development brings too many roads and too much traffic, the salamander populations are likely to eventually disappear.
 

Western Chorus Frog

This Saturday past, I attended a wonderful workshop on vernal pools. It was held at the Stratford Ecological Center, a jewel of a place not far north of Columbus in Delaware County.

The workshop was organized and sponsored by the Ohio Environmental Council, and featured a cast of fine speakers on a variety of topics.

I arrived well in advance of starting time and the arrival of the other attendees. I wanted to wander in solitude through some of Stratford's 236 acres, and drink in the ambience of the large vernal pools. Just in case you're not up on wetland types, a vernal pool is a depressional wetland that floods only for a relatively brief period. Many vernal pools are small, and in this part of the world they are typically found in forested habitats. Winter snow melt and spring rains fuel them, and vernal pools are brimming with water in March. Come summer's end, they'll start to lose water as rainfall lessens and evaporation takes its toll, along with the increased thirst of surrounding plants wicking up the pool's water. By late summer, vernal pools are often bone dry.

But now, at their peak, vernal pools are packed with an incredible abundance and diversity of fauna. The pool in the photo is an absolute gem of a place. It's loaded with salamanders, frogs, fairy shrimp, caddisflies, Wood Ducks, and scores of other beasts great and small. Small, mostly.

After our classroom lectures had concluded, the group headed afield to learn the secrets of vernal pools up close and personal. Our outdoor lessons were LOUDLY serenaded by legions of tiny frogs; a species that is probably our most conspicuous amphibian right now. Everyone who ventures near vernal pools or other shallow, seasonally flooded wetlands and has their ears open is familiar with the abrasive rasps of Western Chorus Frogs, Pseudacris triseriata, whether they know its name or not.

A little girl in our group spotted this throaty little beauty floating in the pool, and snagged it with a deft lunge. Western Chorus Frogs are only an inch and a quarter or so, but have the vocal pipes of a Pavarotti. Get a whole gang of these guys together and bent on impressing the ladies, and the collective din is nearly overwhelming.

For much of the year, these frogs are quiet and retiring, and not likely to be noticed. Not now. They just can't be missed.

I made this video while standing at the edge of the pool in the photo above. It was around 9 am, and the air temperature was 39 degrees. Later in the day, as things warmed, the frogs became even more intense in their singing.

Western Chorus Frogs are a classic sound of spring throughout Ohio and the Midwest. In order to keep this froggy symphony playing, we have to protect the vernal pools and other ephemeral wetlands that are the frog factories that crank them out.

Frogs are nearly upon us

Come spring, and a boy's thoughts turn to frogs. At least mine do. Here in Ohio, we're still locked in winter's last gasps. It snowed a fair bit yesterday, and temperatures are projected to plummet to 19 degrees tonight in Columbus. But at this time of year, it's as if Mother Nature is shaking out a huge blanket, trying to cast off those last bits of sleety snowy nastiness and clean the sheet for spring.

March becomes a roller coaster ride of meteorological ups and downs, yo-yoing between winter/spring, winter/spring. Come Monday, it's supposed to hit near 60, but then plunge to much cooler temps again for a few days.

But the froggy set doesn't need much encouragement to float to the top of pools and ponds and start to do their thing. In fact, there have already been numerous reports of Spring Peepers piping up on the few warm days we've had thus far.

Within the next week or so, the outrageously loud vocalizations of Spring Peepers will resonate from wet spots throughout much of Ohio. These tiny blowhards are incredibly, nearly unbelievably, noisy. Many is the time I have stood in the midst of an ephemeral pool fueled by spring rains with legions of peepers peeping all about. Their calls are so loud and of such pitch as to be nearly painful. Males, such as the one above in full tune, must either be deaf at certain frequencies or possess a shutoff valve that clamps over their hearing organs when in song.

A tip for observing these suction-footed little charmers. If you detect a pool full of peepers, wade on in. All the frogs will instantly shut off upon your approach, as if waved to silence by some amphibious symphony conductor's baton. Stand still and patient, and within a few minutes the peepers will begin popping to the surface all around you, and resume their singing. It's a rather magical experience and the way to experience firsthand the full brunt of their wall of sound.

A common companion of Spring Peepers is this tri-striped little beauty, the Western Chorus Frog. It is sometimes called the Striped Chorus Frog and I think that I prefer that moniker. This one was photographed on a warm rainy night in early March of last year, in Logan County, Ohio. Their song is quite easy to learn and one that I'm sure you've heard if you live in the eastern half of North America. A Western Chorus Frog sounds like someone running their fingernail down the teeth of a comb, but piped through a stack of Marshall amps. The colder it is, the slower the frog runs through its scale. Their coarse raspy trills offer an interesting musical punctuation to the high-pitched birdlike notes of the peepers.

This is it - the world's toughest frog. No amphibian ranges further north than does the Wood Frog, and I'm sure that they've already been into breeding pools at least in southern Ohio. Wood Frogs literally have "anti-freeze" pumping through their system. The frog uses urea and glucose to create so-called cryoprotectants that allow it to re-thaw itself after being frozen nearly stiff.

Wood Frogs are wonderful ambassadors for vernal pools in this part of the world. Small wooded pools that flood with early spring rains are where most of our Wood Frogs go to breed, and seeing a pack of them going ape in a small vernal pool is truly a sight. From afar, the male's collective singing sounds like the quacks of a distant flock of Mallards.

If you'd like to learn more about vernal pools and all of the fascination that they offer, the Ohio Environmental Council is offering a couple of educational workshops. DETAILS ARE HERE. The OEC also has produced a fabulous new Guide to Vernal Pools, and I'm sure they'll have it available at the workshops, or you can score it through their website.