Spring and Spotted Salamanders

I awakened to a hard March rain heralded by blustery but warm southern breezes. The snow that had fallen the previous day had melted and the rain had already made noticeable inroads on the crusted layer that lay beneath. Would this rainy night, I wondered, be the night — the night the spotted salamanders emerged from brumation and accessed their breeding ponds?

A quick check of the proposed forecast showed we were experiencing a late winter warm front, slow moving, almost stalled, and replete with rain. And that rain was supposed to fall all day, terminating in the early evening. The next day would probably be cold again.

At dusk, the rain was still falling as Patti and I carefully made our way, across ground still slippery with icy patches, to a well-known spotted salamander breeding pond.

As we neared the pond, our lights illuminated the wriggling form of a salamander as it emerged from cover in the woodland and approached the icy rim. It then crossed the ice to enter the open water beyond. A single spring peeper began calling. Then another salamander was seen, and another.

Although the rain was now nearly stopped and the night was cooling, that night definitely was the night. Despite the calendar date, the spotted salamanders had declared that spring was officially here.

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.