Finding reptiles and, especially, amphibians has a mystique quite different from a bird walk or studying ecosystems. It needs to be done at night, and it involves playing in the water. The highlight of our night was exploring a Delmarva bay, seen above, but we found different animals in three separate locations down New Castle County.
31 May 2014
Middle Creek Natural Area
6:07 p.m. scattered clouds but mostly sunny, 75 degrees
Our first stop was brief but fun when Jim White led us to an old springhouse at Middle Run Natural Area, a county park just north of Newark where the restoration and biological diversity work is managed by the Delaware Nature Society. I had heard Jim describe the springhouses that dot our area as great habitat for long-tailed salamanders (Eurycea longicauda) a couple of times, but not having any ready access to one, I hadn’t seen them myself.
The old stone building was taller than most springhouses I’m used to seeing; we could stand upright in the building, after squeezing past a large piece of plywood that served as a door, of sorts, though it didn’t open very far. Inside was cool and dark, characteristics that make them attractive to long-tailed salamanders. There was a pool of very clear, still water in front of us - the springhouse was only perhaps four feet deep, although it was six or eight feet wide.
While it wasn’t the right time of year to see a large number of the animals, a couple of them did cooperate. Above the pool on the wall opposite us one salamander had its head and upper legs out of the wall, with the rest of its body hidden behind rock. The salamanders actually go behind the walls and into the earth for a portion of the year. We did get to see the long tail that gives the species its name when we noticed a second animal hanging on the wall on full display. (The tail is about 60 percent of the animal’s overall length.) It was funny the difference between seeing Jim’s photos of them and seeing them in person. They were smaller than I expected, for one thing. Without anything in the photographs to really lend a sense of scale, the overriding impression I got was just of their long-tails, which I guess made me assume they must be large animals, but they were fairly small overall. They were also a much more interesting color than I would have guessed. In photos, they look white, presumably because of the flash, but in person, they are a yellowish-green, a very distinctive coloring. Individuals in the species can also be red, but the yellow-green is more common.
Long-tailed salamanders require very high-quality water, which is another reason they prefer springhouses. They lay 60 to 110 eggs once a year, between late fall and early spring, depending on where in their considerable range they are. (They can be found throughout the Piedmont and Appalachian highlands and west into the Ohio Valley and the Ozarks.) The larvae are aquatic, spending about six months in the water with branching gills; if food is scarce, they will overwinter as larvae and metamorph the following year. The adults are terrestrial, living among the rocks and crevices along streams, as with many other salamanders, and in caves, springhouses, abandoned mines and similar habitat.
While small groups of us were filing into the springhouse to see the long-tailed salamanders, the rest of the group was looking for other salamanders in the nearby creek and surrounding hillside. Rocks fully in the stream were not great places to look, despite being good places for salamanders to be, because they could too easily swim away. We were advised to search rocks along the bank, partially in the water. The group spread up and down the creek, and before we left came back together to share what they had found.
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| Dusky salamander |
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| Two-lined salamander |
Together the group came up with two-lined salamanders (Eurycea bislineata) and dusky salamanders (Desmognathus fuscus) from the stream, and a red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) from the hillside, since they are terrestrial.
7:37 p.m. Lums Pond State Park
For our next stop we left the Piedmont and stopped at Lums Pond State Park to look for turtles. Being coastal plain, we also heard different species of frogs, and before we were even all off the van, someone had caught a Fowler’s toad (Anaxyrus fowleri), which looks similar but is not identical to the Eastern American toad to which we’re accustomed on the Piedmont. From the parking lot we headed across a field towards the pond, hearing a scarlet tanager, cedar waxwing and carolina wren on the way. As we neared the water, we could hear the call of northern cricket frogs (Acris crepitans), and I was surprised at how exciting it was to hear something new - frogs, but unlike any frogs I had heard before, at least since I’ve been paying attention. The best description for their noise I heard that evening is that it sounds like marbles clacking together. There must have been many, but we didn’t see any - we could hear them across the pond. Had we been next to them, they still would have been hard to find, since they are a bit smaller than spring peepers, which are already nearly impossibly small to find.
The main reason for stopping at Lums Pond was to find turtles, though, and the group had luck, while I wished I had brought binoculars. I didn’t see anything, but the group found red-bellied cooters (Pseudemys rubriventris) and painted turtles (Chrysemys picta). There are four subspecies of painted turtle, with the one in our area being the Eastern Painted Turtle, Chrysemys picta picta. The animals grow up to 9 inches long with a smooth, low, rounded carapace, as one expects in an aquatic turtle. A quiet pond like Lums Pond is typical habitat for the species, which often basks in groups or floats just under the surface of the water with their heads sticking up, the way our group saw them. They always eat underwater but have a relatively varied diet: plants, insects, mosquito larvae, even mollusks and crustaceans. Eggs are laid between May and July in a hole two to five inches deep and within 10 yards of the water. Between five and 20 eggs incubate between 8 to 12 weeks, or sometimes until the next spring.
We finished up at Lums Pond back by the parking lot, behind the nature center, where there was a small Delmarva bay, although it isn’t clear if it’s a natural one or manmade. Like the prospect of seeing and hearing different species, the Delmarva bays had captured my attention before the trip - I was looking forward to exploring one of these unique geological formations. Perhaps from growing up in Delaware, and maybe just because I didn’t fully explore it, I don’t think of our home as unusual or remarkable. So the idea that the area around southwestern New Castle County has natural depressions that fill with groundwater for a portion of the year but drain and are dry in the fall and winter was fascinating. The bays offer amphibians particularly good breeding water because as temporary ponds they can’t support fish, cutting down on the predation faced by the frogs and their young. Sadly, the Delaware Nature Society no longer goes into the one at Lums Pond because ranavirus has been discovered there, which kills the tadpoles of many species, and even more sadly, just two days after our trip, the News Journal reported that ranavirus has been found in many bays and ponds in Blackbird State Forest, where we were headed next.
Blackbird State Forest
Not knowing about the spread of the disease, we thoroughly enjoyed exploring Teardrop Pond in Blackbird. On the van ride down we packed everything we needed to keep dry in our bags to leave in the van; I ended up only taking a headlamp and my camera in a plastic bag into the Delmarva bay. When we arrived, night had finally fallen, and we all found chest waders and got suited up. It was my first time wearing waders, and they are ridiculous. On land. They’re bulky and cumbersome and loud. On the walk down the trail to the pond, the noise of the rubber moving around was distracting, although we still heard both gray treefrogs (Hyla versiolor) and cope’s gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis) as we got into the woods.
When we stopped at the turn-off to Teardrop Pond, Jim noted it was a colder night than he had hoped, so activity might be limited, but while he was going over his instructions we heard a Barking Treefrog (Hyla gratiosa), an endangered species in Delaware that Jim and his wife Amy were actually the first to document here. (They have literally written the book on Amphibians and Reptiles of Delmarva, which I encourage anyone with an interest to pick up.)
Since it was a relatively quiet night, I think we all started out with low expectations, feeling fortunate just to have heard the Barking Treefrog at least. The path down to the water was narrow, so we went single-file and soon found ourselves ankle-deep while pushing through the brush. I saw a common water snake (Nerodia sipedon) glide by as we were all stretched out and pointed it out to those on either side of me, once again showing my still developing naturalist instincts; I should have caught it so everyone could see it. I’ll get the hang of it eventually.
The bay opened up a bit at the end of the path and we all stopped for a bit of further instruction from Jim. He handed out small nets and ziploc bags for us to keep any frogs we caught in until the group could come back together to share everything we had found, then set us in groups of four to see what we could find.
The Delmarva bay was unlike anything I had seen before, and quite different from the one at Lums Pond. It was a good size, probably three or four feet deep in most of the areas where we were, although Jim shared that it is relatively small as the formations go and likely to be dry early, by August. The water was cool, but the waders did their job. (And in the water, they make complete sense - the water presses them around your legs and body and they feel much more like regular clothes, except that you’re standing in water up to your chest and staying dry.)
The center of the pond was filled with brush growing straight up out of the water. Most of the plants were Buttonbush, its lowest leaves just over the water, but several feet of trunk below. The plants are adapted to the standing water, which many others cannot survive. Along the edges of the pond, though, we found plenty of large trees growing up out of the water as well, and it was on these that we found our first frogs.
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| Barking treefrog |
Though it was incredible to see the Barking Treefrog, given its rarity, the highlight of the evening for me was spotting a Southern Leopard Frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus). We heard its distinctive call further in the brush towards the center of the pond and made our way slowly in its direction, comparing where a couple of us thought we heard it coming from to get a better fix on it. Moving slowly through the water and scanning ahead with our flashlights we could tell we were getting closer, but it wasn’t easy to see with all the vegetation. After cautiously and awkwardly getting through a few bushes, though, I spotted it on a floating log and pointed it out. Rather than risk losing it, I volunteered to hold a light on it while more experienced hands caught the animal, and we were able to share it with the group at the end.
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| Southern leopard frog |
While the Barking Treefrog is the less common animal in Delaware, it was exciting to play a personal role in finding the leopard frog for the group, another reminder that there really is no substitute for direct experience. While I’m hoping you are enjoying reading about the walks I’ve done this year, and I do believe learning about the animals and plants around us in any way is valuable, you really can’t beat the emotional connection forged by plunging into the pond itself, so to speak.
When the group gathered again after exploring the Delmarva bay, we found many had seen the gray treefrogs and the green frogs. Even several Barking Treefrogs were found in the end. I believe the leopard frog was the only one brought in, but by bringing him to the group everyone got to see him. And others had caught two reptiles too - a common water snake, so my earlier oversight didn’t end up too important, and a mud turtle (Kinosternon subrubrum), which was an unusual animal to find, since they spend most of their time under the sediment under the water.
Species list
Middle Run
Two-lined salamander
Dusky salamander
Long-tailed salamander
Red-backed salamander
Wood thrush
Mourning dove
Ovenbird
Beech
Tuliptree
Red maple
Oak
Woodpecker
Lum’s Pond
Fowler’s toad
Scarlet tanager
Cedar waxwing
Carolina wren
Eastern cricket frog
Bullfrog
Osprey
Red-bellied cooter
Painted turtle
Buttonbush
Wood duck
Wood thrush
Blackbird State Forest
Buttonbush
low-bush blueberry
Sweet gum
Barking treefrog
Northern or common water snake
Mud turtle
Green frog
Southern leopard frog
Gray treefrog
Cope’s gray treefrog
Eastern cricket frog
Red maple
Dragonfly
Beaver (sign)
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