Highlights
March 2023 - March Moonlight Walk, Vernal Pools
ACTIVITY ALERT - Hooting and Howling at the Moon in March
Windy combined with below freezing temps cancelled the February night hike so we are trying again. This month we'll be hiking by the light of the waxing Worm Moon. We will occasionally stop and howl and hoot hoping to elicit a response from a territorial owl or a lonely coyote.
Directions to trailhead:
We will meet on Blossom Road at Corduroy Trail approximately 400' north of Fall River Water Department's Watuppa Headquarters at 2929 Blossom Road, Fall River, MA. Park along the east side of the road.
Due to the extremely poor road conditions make sure you approach the meeting location from the Westport, south end, of Blossom Road.
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ACTIVITY ALERT - Difficult weather, rain, flurries, cold and windy this past Saturday, but by the 8 p.m. meeting time the foul weather abated and the waxing Worm Moon decided to shyly peek out through the fleeing gray clouds as a few hardy hikers started out to see if anything was hooting and howling in the forest.
Next forest walk will be April 15, Saturday. We will meet at 9 a.m. to walk along and check on spring's progress. Watch your email for an "alert" later this month.
Big, about 2 feet tall with a 48 inch wingspan, attractive and vocal, the barred owl is found in dense forest, especially wooded swamps, throughout the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB). This owl's native range in the United States extends from the Great Plains to the Atlantic coast. They are also native to southern Canada and in recent years have expanded their range into the Pacific Northwest and northern California.
Forest ramblers and folks living adjacent to thick woods are familiar with the hooting call of this “hoot” owl ...“Who cooks for you ... Who cooks for you all” ...most often heard in the evening at nightfall. During spring mating season the call can often be heard all day long too as males and females call to each other and claim territories. Even a poor imitation of this call will often bring the owl flying in for a close-up look. Sporting a coat of barred ...hence the name ...brown and white fluffy feathers and large black eyes the barred owl is the most common owl out in the SMB.
Barred owls have an extensive vocabulary. Not only do they hoot, they also screech, hiss, howl, cackle, click their beaks loudly when nervous or angry, and make monkey-like sounds while pumping their head up and down. Many who think they've heard a fisher “screaming like a woman” in the nighttime woods have actually heard a barred owl.
In the SMB the only other woodland owl that can be mistaken for the barred owl is the great horned owl. The great horned owl also has a hooting call, but fewer than the barred owl's 8 hoots in length and with different rhythm. The great horned is also larger than the barred owl, has yellow eyes instead of black and has ear tufts (horns) on its head.
Like hawks during the day, owls hunt at night. Unlike hawks, barred owls can see well both night and day. Their hunting method is to sit silently in a tree until a woods mouse, chipmunk, vole, wood frog or small bird appears on the forest floor below their position. They also prey on large forest beetles and other insects. Like most owls their modified wing feathers allow for silent flight and their prey item on the forest forest rarely knows there is an owl coming in from above ...until it is too late.
Barred owls will also eat smaller owls if the opportunity presents itself and in turn will be eaten by the larger great horned owl.
The barred owl breeds and nests early in the year in the thickest and darkest part of hardwood and conifer forests. Mated pairs will use the same nest, usually in a hollow tree, year after year. If a hollow isn't available they will take over an old hawk, raven, crow or squirrel nest. Barred owls lay 2 to 4 eggs and the female incubates the eggs for about 28 days. Both parents take care of the young hatchlings and feeding a large brood may require constant day and night hunting by these normally nighttime hunting birds.
Owlets leave the nest when they are five weeks old. They remain dependent on their parents for food as they develop their hunting skills over the summer.
In the SMB barred owls are permanent residents, but some do move to more southern locations during extremely cold and snowy weather.
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INFO ALERT - They haven't seen each other since last fall. Attractive and alluring, amorous amphibians are cavorting, right now, in a vernal pool near you!
Lights in the forest.
Before COVID shut us down we used to visit, each spring, a Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve vernal pool that was easy for folks to access after a short walk. During some early spring visits, depending on the weather and year, there would be anywhere from dozens to hundreds of breeding salamanders cavorting about. We used to partner with The Trustees on some of these vernal pool viewings. It is unfortunate they lost interest in the Bioreserve and reneged on their promise to construct a Bioreserve Environmental Education Center.
"In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught.”
The Spotted Salamander is a striking creature, rubbery looking in its shiny black skin with two irregular rows of yellow spots running from the top of the head to the tip of the tail. The salamander’s underside is light gray or black. Adult spotted salamanders are 6 to 9 inches long. Females tend to be larger than males.
The spotted salamander is the largest salamander native to southeastern New England. The spotted, along with its slightly smaller and much rarer cousin the marbled salamander are members of the mole salamander family …so named because they spend most of their time in burrows hunting their prey beneath the forest floor.
Lacking claws they do not dig their own burrows, but utilize those dug by shrews, voles and mice. Shrews, especially, are fierce predators with insatiable appetites but avoid munching on spotted salamanders due to the salamander’s toxic skin secretions.
The spotted salamander lives in hardwood and mixed hardwood/softwood forests. They tend to leave their burrows only to breed, but will occasionally leave to hunt above ground on warm, humid, rainy summer nights.
Spotted salamanders are found in forested areas throughout the eastern United States and southern Canada. Still a common woodland salamander species, they are starting to decline in some areas. Acid rain and other rain carried pollutants may be the cause of these gradual losses.
Spotted salamanders are most often encountered during mass migrations on rainy nights in March and April when heading to vernal pools where they will mate and lay their eggs. Like salmon, spotted salamanders return to the exact pool where they were born and lived as tadpoles before undergoing metamorphosis.
Spotted salamanders will travel as far as half a mile to reach the pool of their birth.
Vernal pools are necessary habitats for this species. Vernal pools are temporary, usually shallow woodland water bodies that only contain water during the rainy spring season. Because these pools are temporary these pools do not contain fish which would, if present in the spotted salamanders’ breeding pools, gobble up all the eggs and young tadpoles.
In early spring females are the first to arrive at the pool. The males arrive a day or two later and upon entering the pool they quickly swim to a female and begin the nuptial dance. The males swim about excitedly, nudging and rubbing against a female. The females reciprocate.
At the height of the dance males deposit spermatophores at the bottom of the pool. Spermatophores are small capsules of sperm. They resemble small white Chiclets gum pieces.
The female spotted salamanders locate and position themselves over the spermatophores. Grasping a spermatophore with her hind feet the female salamander inserts it into her body. Internal fertilization of her eggs then occurs.
Females lay their 25 to over 100 eggs in jelly masses which look similar to frog eggs. The jelly egg masses cling to twigs and branches in the water. These egg masses are round and 3 to 5 inches in diameter. The jelly surrounding the individual eggs turns green due to the presence of symbiotic algae.
The jelly mass provides nutrients and the developing salamander embryos provide carbon dioxide needed by the green algae. The algae, through photosynthesis, produce oxygen needed by the developing salamander embryos.
The eggs hatch in a few weeks and the tadpoles are carnivorous feeding on zooplankton, water insects, frog tadpoles …and each other. They are quite fierce and grow very rapidly.
As spring becomes summer the vernal pools begin to dry up. The spotted salamander tadpoles, in their respective pools, sense the changing pool environment and quickly lose their external gill and develop lungs, grow legs and transform into the more rounded shape of an adult salamander.
As the pools dry completely the young salamanders leave …some as early as mid-July, others as late as October.
During the winter, they hibernate in deep underground burrow chambers.
Spotted salamanders eat small insects, spiders, slugs and earthworms.
They are preyed upon by garter and ribbon snakes, but due to their toxic slime few woodland predators want to eat them. Raccoons are one of the few species that thwart the salamander’s slime defense by rolling them in leaves and repeatedly washing them in a nearby brook or pool before devouring them.
If a spotted salamander loses its tail or leg to a predator it will regenerate that lost member …although it may take over a year to do so.
With a lifespan of thirty to forty years they are amazingly long lived for such a small creature.
It has become an early spring tradition with many nature centers, land trusts and environmental groups to lead walks to view the spotted salamander mating rituals in local vernal pools. Take part and learn about your spotted salamander neighbors, vernal pools and this amazing annual spring phenomenon.
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