Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Environmental Leader and Innovator | Page 20

People and Happenings
Seeking Spotted Salamanders
by Hilary Hopkins, Mount Auburn Inscription Volunteer
On April 9th I got an email from the Cemetery.
“It’s the first warm rainy day of spring. The spotted salamanders
in our vernal pool might have their Big Night tonight.
Come at 7:30 and we’ll go see.”
So they have a Big Night?? Get down and party, do they?
Well, yes. The salamanders hibernate in protected places near
the pool. On the first warm, wet spring night, they emerge
and head toward it. Males and females cavort together in the
water, and a few days later, gelatinous masses of eggs result.
A little crowd of salamander hunters was gathered at the
Cemetery’s front gate in the dusk. By that time it had not
been raining for quite a few hours, and I was worried that
the salamanders would not find the weather to their liking.
I liked it though—warmish and humid after a long, cold,
windy winter. I took some pictures of the bare trees against
the sky, which was gray and overcast. We made our way to
Consecration Dell and the vernal pool in the bottom of it.
We were met by Joe Martinez, a herpetologist who studies
the Cemetery’s amphibians and reptiles. Joe had some nets
and plastic tubs.
The pool still had a pancake of ice in the middle, though
the margins were clear. As darkness gathered, we went
slowly around it, shining our flashlights into the water
to see if we could find salamanders. I loved being in the
dark, moist air. I began to hear the deafening high-pitched
chirpings of spring peepers, tiny one-inch long frogs.
“Look! Here’s one!” I heard from the other side of the
pool. I hurried over. Not a salamander, but a spring peeper.
Flashlights shone on the leaves. For the life of me I couldn’t
see anything. “No—right THERE!” Oh! My goodness,
he looks just like a leaf. He sat in our lights, frozen. I took
some pictures. We began to hear them all over. Their chirps
are astoundingly loud, especially when you see how tiny
they are.
CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP
Joe called, “I got a toad!” We gathered around him to see.
Several years ago he released some American Toad tadpoles
in the pool, and he has been monitoring their progress, in-
viting visitors to report sightings, which he marks on a map
of the Cemetery. The map shows how their population has
increased and is moving through their new home.
But where are the spotted salamanders?
I set off again round the pool with my flashlight illumi-
nating the now-dark path and the shallow water. As I come
round to the beginning again, there’s a commotion. “Got
one! Got one! I’ll put him in the tub!”
Yes indeed, there in the bottom of the tub is a handsome
salamander, black with yellow spots. We watch him and,
possibly, he watches us. I love the salamander’s big eyes, an
inscrutable matte black.
We admire him for a while and then most of us head
back to the front gate. Today I learned that Joe had located
several more spotteds after we left.
But still not the really BIG NIGHT. Perhaps not wet
enough. It is supposed to rain in the evening later this
week. Maybe we will go out again. I hope so.
Hilary Hopkins, of Cambridge, is a long-time volunteer at Mount
Auburn Cemetery, where she works in the monument inscription
program. She is a traveler, naturalist and writer and maintains a
website, www.hilarysplaces.com.
“So many great dramas of the natural world take place right around us, but are hidden in plain view.
Here’s reality, not virtual but REAL. But you gotta look or you won’t see. Left to right: American Toad,
spotted salamander, spring peeper.
18 | Sweet Auburn