Vernal pool activity

It's that time of year again when salamanders and wood frogs head to vernal pools and spring peepers fill the air with their chorusing.  We had no luck finding migrating spotted salamanders at night, but did find quite a few under logs during the day.

These three were all tucked away under the same log.  Just a few feet away, there were plenty of eggs in the pool.

There were also some spermatophores scattered on the leaves underwater.

 Large fairy shrimp swam about, although not as many as there were a couple of weeks ago.

Other finds included two water scorpions...

dragonfly larva...

and lots of leeches and green frog tadpoles.