Weather is Right, But No Salamanders Yet

Northern dusky salamander along Little Jelloway Creek in Howard, Ohio, on August 1, 2013.  (Photo by Don Comis)

It's 54 degrees Fahrenheit here in Howard, Ohio, at 3:35 a.m., with rain on and off, but no salamanders.  At least not up to 1:30 this morning.

I went out to the vernal pool at Kenyon College with a lantern flashlight with a red film screwed in and sat in a camp chair from midnight to 1:30 a.m.  Nothing and no eggs in the pool, so the mass migration of salamanders hadn't taken place yet.

It could still happen until the temperature drops to the predicted 32 degrees, but I doubt it. 

Maybe the salamanders know it could snow today.

The only animals I saw were a rabbit and deer.  I heard a few scary dog barks and a scary animal scream, plus smelled a musky animal fear smell, and saw a small creature run away.

Well, I'll consider this a practice run that's getting me familiar again with Nature at dark.

Barred Owls But No Salamanders

This morning's view of the vernal pool, with most of the ice melted and filled with water from snowmelt and rain. (Photo by Don Comis)

Oz, a barred owl held by Mrs. Vann, a.k.a. Manon Van Schoyck, executive director of Ohio NatureEducation--a private nonprofit organization dedicated to caring for animals, like Oz, that can no longer survive in the wild.  Oz's wild days ended when he got hopelessly tangled in a soccer net.  (Photo by Don Comis)

  
With all the conditions seeming right for a salamander/amphibian migration this morning--temperature in the high 40's Fahrenheit, rain, and temperatures in the 60's yesterday--I decided to brave the rain and check out the vernal pool in Gambier, Ohio.

I had no luck but did scare up a little creature, a mammal that looked like something other than a squirrel.  Since it was just at daybreak and the light was still low and it was running from the river toward the woods, I decided it might be a mink.


I did hear two owls calling to each other--I think they were barred owls saying, "We have a nest here, no other owls allowed in our territory!"

Unless they were chasing me out too, as the mockingbird coupled did again today on my way out.

From the Brown Family Environmental Center's north side, I then drove to the south side to check for the horned owls nesting in a pine plantation.  March lived up to its moon's name, "Mud Moon," as I kept slipping on the muddy and icy parts of the trail, finally falling once, without harm.

I didn't see any owls but enjoyed the magic, if a bit intimidating, pine forest lair.  I also got to see a rabbit running toward me and many birds.

When it was all over, the birds I could identify were, besides the barred owls:  red-winged blackbirds, three song sparrows, a mourning dove, bluebirds, and crows.

Speaking of birds, I'm encouraged by a birdwatcher's e-mail about his hearing the "peenting" call of a woodcock near a school in Dublin, Ohio, about 50 miles to the south of the Brown Center.  That call is the prelude to woodcock's mating "Sky Dance."

White Cardinals and Other Wildlife News of the Day

Today I had two interesting conversations with my neighbors and learned that an "albino" cardinal had made a second visit to her feeders, while a second neighbor told me he saw tracks of a coyote or fox crossing over Apple Valley Drive from the Clubhouse woods and signs of possibly catching a rabbit.


That seems to connect with the tracks I saw in my yard on the other side of the road recently, indicating the coyote might have taken a left on the road, traveling north to my driveway, then a left into my driveway (with or without a rabbit in its mouth or belly) and then a right after passing my neighbor's house to the north.


The cardinal is most likely leucistic, a genetic mutation that causes a light to whitish coloring, but without the pink eyes of true albinos.


Also, I saw a bird fly out of my bluebird house this morning!  Go figure!!