Notes About Nature

10 February 2013

After yesterday's hike we were tired. I woke up about 5am and saw it was raining and went back to bed. The temperature was in the 30s and I had no motivation. We finally rolled out of bed about 8:15. Today we were heading to the northern Ozark boarder, just north of the Missouri River. Since Andy was going with us, I called him to make sure he was up; he was. We got to our location about 10:20am. Using Google maps on my phone, I pulled up a satellite image and we quickly found our way to a small, woodland pond. The rain was just ending as we arrived with a nightly total of .36 inches. I had high hopes and we got out and started flipping everything in site. We made it to the pond rather quickly where we found quite a few salamander larvae. In this part of country, the only larvae in the pond before the spring breeders get there should be the Marbled Salamander and the Ringed Salamander. Using a dichotomous key, I think we determined these larvae are that of the Ringed Salamander.

Jenna  holding a salamander larvae

Ringed Salamander larve (Ambystoma annulatum)

We spent the next couple of hours flipping logs and rocks as we moved down the hill from the pond. Much looking and the only herp we found was this little guy I flipped under a rock.

Little Brown Skink (Scincella lateralis)

We then moved to a new pond where Jenna had a blast catching salamander larvae and tadpoles. Here is a tadpole she caught that I have not even attempted to identify.

We looked at a few more ponds and came up with nothing. Even the birds were being quiet. Perhaps that was due to the 20 mph winds we dealt with all day. We did have a few species of woodpecker and a couple flyover Bald Eagles. As temperatures reached 60 degrees we began to hear a few Spring Peepers calling. These are always a pleasure to hear for someone that spends the winter longing for spring for the simple reason that the amphibians will soon be coming out of their hiding spots. At the last pond we checked, Andy spotted this camoflauged critter under a log.

 Central Newt eft (Notophthalmus viridescens louisianensis)

Quentin and Andy joined Jenna and I for a delicious supper while we waited for dark. After dark we headed to a spot in southern Boone County to a place where we knew there were a couple fishless ponds. Andy found an American Bullfrog and we saw quite a few more Central Newts. Apparently I have just never looked for newts before, because they are not hard to find. It was quickly cooling off into the 30s so we called it a night.

We've come to the conclusion that we are still a little too early in the year to be finding many adult salamanders. But we promised ourselves that we weren't going to miss the big migrations this year. To keep our promise to ourselves, it is better to be early than late.