The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

~Dolly Parton

Melissa and I traveled to Damascus, VA, yesterday for a funeral service for one of my aunts. It was a lovely tribute to a wonderful woman. Even though it is about a 4-hour drive, we decided to head back home after the funeral because it is a busy week ahead for us both. The weather was less than ideal for a long drive with heavy rains for much of the return trip. When I looked at the forecast earlier in the week and saw the prediction for warm temperatures and over an inch of rain at night, I knew we would probably have our first big salamander run of the season (a couple of weeks ago I found a few salamander spermatphores on the bottom of our wildlife pools after a good night-time rain).

So, as we approached our community, we slowed down to look for salamanders crossing the road. There is a small pool in the woods a couple of miles from our house that has always been a favored breeding spot for Marbled and Spotted Salamanders. Indeed, we saw several out in the road (that we stopped and helped cross safely), along with some dead ones that had been hit by cars

-A dead Spotted Salamander on the road near a breeding pond (click photos to enlarge)

We stopped a few times on the way in to get some more out of the road and finally got to our house. After getting some stuff out of the car, I went back out to one of our wildlife pools to see what might be happening here. It was a major breeding congress (I still chuckle every time I say that) in action!

–Spotted Salamander breeding frenzy (aka breeding congress)

I ran back in and got Melissa and we watched in awe for a few minutes and then decided to contact some friends that might want to come over to witness this spectacle. After texting several fellow nature nerds, we had one local teacher take us up on the offer.

We were going to meet her out at the spot a couple of miles from our house where we had seen the salamanders crossing the paved road in order to try to help more of the love-struck amphibians get safely across. The heavy rain had stopped, and that usually means the salamanders slow down their movements. But, on the way out the door we did find a large female on our moss/stone walkway, slowly headed to one of our pools.

-A Spotted Salamander on our walkway headed to a breeding pool in our yard

When we met up with our friend, we checked the large roadside pool and were surprised to not see any adults, though there were lots of Marbled Salamander larvae (that species breeds earlier in the Fall and these larvae will feast on the newly hatched Spotted Salamander larvae later this spring). Unfortunately we did find several more dead Spotted Salamanders in the road. There is a another pool across the road, but the water was so cloudy we couldn’t see anything. I did spot an Upland Chorus Frog headed to the pool to join the gang that was already filling the night air with their loud calls (their call sounds like the sound made by running your thumbnail across the teeth of a comb).

-An Upland Chorus Frog about the join a roadside pool that was full of calling frogs

Back at home, we all oohed and aahed at the salamander extravaganza. But, without the rain, the activity had slowed considerably. Interestingly, the ones in our pool with a waterfall were doing more of the swimming up and down to the water surface than those in the other pool. I wonder if the water droplets flung into the pool from the small waterfall may mimic rainfall enough to stimulate this behavior?

–View of salamanders in the other pool that is a little deeper and clearer. You can see some spermatophores (whitish blobs) scattered on the pool’s bottom, along with some duckeed

The next thing to watch for will be the females laying egg masses the next night or two (I will be out of town in two nights and may miss the bulk of this behavior). We really aren’t sure how many Spotted Salamanders are in our two small pools, but a fair guess is at least 25-30 in each. This amazing migration and congregation of these beautiful amphibians occurs on rainy nights from January through early March in fish-less pools throughout much of our state. It is always exciting to witness this abundance of wildness, especially when it is so close to home. As our friend Andy put it after Melissa sent him the text about the circumstance surrounding this particular event…”Nice to go from a celebration of life to another celebration of life”. I don’t think my aunt would have minded what some might think is an unusual comparison. She knew about our nature nerdiness, and she loved life and wanted others to enjoy it in all its glory.