Rural Banter

Author: ERICA GOODMAN

Beware of ... salamanders crossing?

The colorful amphibians seem quite odd specimens to watch out for. They do not hold for individuals the equal fear as running into a bear on your travels nor the same awe of seeing a moose cross your path. But within the Otter Creek Preserve, townspeople sign up in droves each spring to do their part in the great salamander caper.

Guidelines for joining the escort service are simple. No credit card numbers required. No experience in evening courting necessary. Simply sign up and on damp nights in March and April, when the temperature reaches above 45 degrees, wait along Morgan Road in Salisbury. Hundreds of rare blue-spotted and four-toed salamanders approach to stretch their legs across the macadam. Why do these salamanders cross the road? Well, to get to the other side, of course. All right, bad joke. In the past two months, the slightly aquatic crawlers have been migrating from the mountain in search of vernal (meaning spring) and semi-permanent pools (in New England vernacular, "wicked big puddles") in which to mate and lay their eggs. Spring days used to be the worst days for these creatures, with cars cutting their four-legged travel plans short. And now to the rescue da da da da! are the salamander escorts, out to save the tiny species from the menacing evil of motor vehicles. Or, as the Middlebury Area Land Trust explains, to "help these rare salamanders from becoming two-dimensional."

I recently had the opportunity to explore the vernal pools of Otter Creek Preserve in the company of a handful of area residents. With Research Herpetologist Jim Andrews as our guide, we hiked through the fields and woods of the park until we came across the temporary water holes. On any other day I would have certainly passed along the trail admiring the blossoming vegetation. But instead of keeping my gaze on those things that scaled the surface, I learned to look at what was hiding just beneath it. I joined the group in digging into the muck and we found red efts, dusky, northern two-lined, spotted and eastern red-backed salamanders and wood frogs. Had I not knelt down to search under rocks and in the cool water of the pools, I would have missed an entire miniature world of activity.

I have since acquired a new appreciation for the life aquatic and murky. Salamanders may need assistance in traveling across roadways but they would not need the help if the pavement was not obstructing their path to fertile grounds in the first place. The annual migration has mostly come to a halt this year, the little amphibians already mating and laying their blob of eggs in the spring pools. But if I am near Salisbury next spring, I will most definitely volunteer my escort services to keep a small but important part of the spring culture alive.