The Big Night

Spring nights hold a certain magic for me. After the long silent winter nights, there’s something energizing and refreshing about the sounds and smells of a spring night.

Earlier this week I took a drive down to Labrador Hollow in search of all that a spring evening has to offer. I pulled into the parking area just after 7:00 pm, as the sun was sinking and painting the sky pink and blue. My hatchback is just tall enough for me to sit back with the door open, affording me a view of the large fields and the surrounding hillsides.

It wasn’t long before the magic began. From my right I could hear spring peepers singing their high pitched songs. A barred owl called out from somewhere on that hillside, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” From above came the twittering of a courting woodcock as it flew in slow circles against the now deep blue sky. The moon was bright and full, illuminating the field and casting soft shadows.

It was almost time…

Gathering my camera equipment, headlamp, and tall waterproof boots, I began the walk down the road in search of one of the most magical events of spring. For anyone who has attended one of our Amphibian Alert Programs, you will know exactly what I’m about to describe…

Walking along the moonlit road, directing my headlamp at every stick, rain puddle, or drifting leaf, I searched for the stragglers of a yearly event known to herpetologists as the “Big Night”.

Yellow-spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)

There! I see the outline of an 8-inch long spotted salamander, head held upright as it scouts the road which it must cross. And there was another! And there – a wood frog! Toads! A little bouncing ball springs across the road – a peeper! Listening carefully I could hear the rustle of leaves as salamanders crawled down the hillside on their way to the vernal pools – those ephemeral ponds, existing in depressions only so long as the water table remains high. 

Yellow-spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum)

Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus)

Jefferson salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum)

Coming up on one of the pools the first thing I noticed was the constant high pitched peep! of spring peepers – the smallest of our native New York frogs, not much bigger than your thumb pad. But they win for sheer vocal volume. Standing too close to a pool full of singing peepers is an experience more felt than heard as the pulsing of hundreds of peepers turns to a weird drumming sensation in your ears. 

Spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)

Swimming wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus)

Wood frogs gurgled away, expanding special sacs on their sides, forcing air back and forth over their vocal chords. Shining my headlamp across the pool I was greeted with a hundred round spots of light reflecting back at me, every one a wood frog eye. 

Swimming yellow-spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum)

Jefferson’s and spotted salamanders moved along the bottom of the pool, crawling through leaves, over one another, occasionally rising to the surface. The males are competing for a chance to bump noses with a female, after which they will deposit a white column on the leaf litter, called a spermatophore. The female will later move through and pick up one of these columns using her cloacal vent at the base of her tail, making these salamanders to be one of the few amphibians that utilize internal fertilization.

This explosion of sound and life happens just once a year, on that first warm rainy night. Some years it may last a few days, if conditions are not ideal. And then, just a few days later, they are gone. The pools are quiet and still, the moment has passed, and all that’s left to show for it are gelatinous egg masses in the water, hope for the future. In a few weeks the eggs will hatch, the salamander larvae will develop and eventually move up into the forest where they will spend the rest of the year in dark tunnels. 

Next year they will make the half-mile trek back to the vernal pools to repeat the process all over again. And on that first warm rainy night of spring, you can bet I’ll be there too, watching for the magic, more than ready to share my own eagerness for spring and life, and not in the least deterred by a little rain.  

Blog post by Tom Meier