On Wednesday night the conditions aligned for convergence, but not on the tidal freshwater rivers, on small woodland ponds and vernal pools. The animals converging on these bodies of water are amphibians; frogs, toads, and salamanders. Movers in the night, animals that need things dark and more than a little bit damp. This was the perfect night, the perfect conditions, and I got to be witness to one of the most remarkable spectacles of nature has to offer here in the Northeast. The amphibian migration.
The most exciting encounter of the night was a pair of marbled salamaders. These animals, beyond being very handsomely colored and impressive (as salamanders go) with their short stocky build, are an uncommon species to bump into on a rainy spring night. These guys don't march to the vernal pools in the spring to breed like spotted salamanders do. They breed in the fall when those pools are just about dry, leaving fertilized egg clusters in the moist dark spaces under logs or leaves or bark. It has been a long time since I saw a marbled salamander, and when I saw the first of this pair my eyes lit up like they did the first time I rolled a rock and saw one peering up at me, wondering why it was so bright all of a sudden all those years ago.
I sit here in front of my computer most days feeling the pressure of the modern world trying to convince me I need to grow up. Life is too fast paced now. If we don't take every chance we get to be a kid again, to chase a grasshopper, catch a fish, observe a salamander crossing the trail on a rainy night, that's when society has failed.
Go experience a migration. The convergence is happening right now,
and it is spectacular!
Great photos, RM! Amazing what creatures are out there living amongst us.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteMostly it is amazing that the live despite us even though most of us have no idea that they are there.
Rowan that was amazing. I could imagine the sounds that you were hearing. Yes, society is out of control, stay your course. Your photos are spectacular.
ReplyDeleteTie, fish, write, conserve and photo on...
Thank you.
DeleteI am so happy you haven't succumbed to the pressure to grow past what truly makes life wonderful. Well expressed sentiments Rowan.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteYou are really ATTENDING to your environment. Thanks for sharing with the rest of us.
ReplyDeletePleasure's all mine.
DeleteThat's a super night... I've never seen a marbled salamander in person - very cool find! Now, to get you to go take more pic's of the timber rattlers again!
ReplyDeletePfff... very little effort needed there, I had already been planning a visit to my den.
DeleteIf you can resist that pressure do it - don’t resist growing up but do resist the things other grown ups tell you that you have to do - it’s all incorrect and I can tell you from experience (and I think you already know) that growing up emotionally and physically doesn’t mean you have to work a boring job full time and be a slave to modern society. But it is extremely hard to live like that in the northeast... I imagine you’ll eventually find a slower paced place to relocate to where it becomes much easier to resist those pressures :)
ReplyDeleteNew England is my home now. I'll leave it but never for good. I've gotten to see parts of it that I don't think you really experienced, and I've come to realize those parts can't really be replaced in the mountain west.
DeleteI think I know your point. I fell in love with the Rockies and many parts of the culture after I first went there 10 years ago. My wife and I talk about moving there from time to time, but there's something about New England that keeps us here. Hard to put a finger on it, but despite all the short comings, things like towns, buildings, and communities feel more 'organic' here somehow. My two cents.
DeleteAin't no lighthouses or false albacore in Colorado.
DeleteThis all said, you may change your mind when you go there. The entire culture and air pressure (literally and figuratively) is very very different. Everyone is outdoor focused (and happy), the landscape and possibilities for adventure are endless - my entire state of mind is changed when I'm out there.
DeleteThis essay is thought and action provoking. In addition to going out owling I need to go salamandering!
ReplyDeleteMy entire back yard is a swamp with peepers at deafening volume. We moved here 2+ years ago. We've had the peepers on the windows! I haven't seen any salamanders though here. But there was a dead one in the next watershed over while I was fishing the other day.
As for the pressures of grownups. I do all the adult work stuff and use a computer to do it--and I get out and play hard! There are many ways to make it work. But happiness matters. And that means avoiding compromise as much as you can.
It's not really succumbing to hard work that I worry about, if you can't work hard what value do you provide to society? It's the loss of curiosity and wonder. One of the oddest moments of clarity I've ever had happened when I was in 2nd grade. I was walking between the bathroom and my classroom and I looked out this big picture window in the hallway at what I now understand was the anvil cloud of a blooming thunderhead. It was brightly illuminated by the sun, stretching almost but not quite over head, and out of it leapt a brilliant cloud to ground lightning bolt that must have traveled miles through the clear air. I turned to a friend walking next to me and asked if he had seen this. He replied "yeah". I asked "Wasn't it amazing?". His response hit 8 year old me like a ton of bricks. "No, its just lightning". I didn't understand those words, couldn't put them together in a way that sounded right. Since then, I've learned that in parts of this country, children seem to be getting pressured not to be children. Digging in the dirt, jumping in puddles, running around in the rain, catching snakes and frogs... somehow these things aren't OK anymore. If you don't do these things as a kid what are the odds you'll develop into an adult that likes to go outside and "play"? Or scientists? Engineers? Mathematicians? I'm pretty sure play is just unpayed work. It's all of this social media and digital age stuff that is changing us for the worse, it has turned play into something fun that we don't learn nearly as much from. Overstimulated by underwhelming things. It's when I use my computer or my phone to distract myself from work that I suddenly realize I'm wasting an immense amount of time that I could have worked, whether that be to be payed monetarily or in knowledge. Play is worthless if it isn't work.
Delete
ReplyDeleteBack when your parents created homemade fun and adventures for you boys, I was often reminded of the words a noted early childhood educator made famous: "Play is the work of childhood."
You have obviously learned the lesson well.