Some cool finds

   

Two Lined Salamander

     I'll be honest, I haven't done much lately. While this post will make it seem like I've been going nature crazy, my adventures have been limited to roughly one per week. The rest of the time I might be in all day or go for a walk at a land trust preserve in town. The big adventures have been far, if not few, between. That of course does mean I've done some stuff and what I have done has been pretty cool. 

   Oct 23

   At the suggestion of my great naturalist friend Charles, we  (Charles, myself, and our friend Louise) hunted down Two Lined Salamanders. Never heard of them? Neither had I until this year. After finding salamanders, assuming we did find them, we were going to look for Western Mosquitofish. Never heard of them? Again, neither had I. 

   Here is what I now know about Two Lined Salamanders. They live under rocks near streams. They are considered common. However, I really do not see how they can be that common because they like areas where the rock is shale. So they like areas with the dark layered rocks along streams and not your typical stream with mud banks or granite boulders. 

  As for the mosquitofish, they do not belong in Rhode Island. Sometimes they are stocked in ponds because they do eat mosquito larvae. They can gulp air like guppies and they are related. Though we live in the east, it turns out that Western Mosquitofish are the species more often stocked. However, RI DEM wouldn't stock them because they can become invasive. Despite their small size they will nip fins and harass other fish. 

 

The underside of a 
Two Lined Salamander 

  About ten days earlier, Charles had come across these little fish. He tried to get a photo and sent it to DEM for confirmation and clarity on which species it was. They said that it was inconclusive. So we went back to capture one and count spines in the fins. 

   But first... the sallys. We met up on Aquidneck Island about 9:30 after it had warmed a little bit. Charles had been scouting for hours before Louise and I got there. We walked next to and through a stream until we walked into a valley and the rocks along the edge did become shale. Quickly Charles found a Two Lined Salamander. We took photos of it and let it go. They have a mustard colored stomach and we got photos of that. A minute or two later I found one of about the same size. I crossed the river so I could flip rocks on one side while they on the other. I ended up finding about five more sallys. We walked back to the car and drove to Charles's mosquitofish spot. 

   

Western Mosquitofish

 It wasn't hard to find them. They were in water three inches deep or less. 

Charles brought his net and I herded them with my shadow as we had the sun behind us. Somehow, Charles caught one on his second pass with the net. We put it in a small clear container and took a million photos. We really needed to see how many spines were on each fin. While the sun glare made it difficult to tell if our photos were coming out well, the bright sun made it easy to see the fish right down to the rays on each fin. We just couldn't tell until we got home. Though there may have been some confusion on whether it is a hybrid or a Western, it seems like the consensus is the fish is a Western Mosquitofish.

Spring Peeper 

Minnow Traps

  For the past couple of weeks I've been baiting minnow traps hoping to find small minnows and shiners. I've tried a couple different streams but have come up empty both times. I may give up until the spring. 

Spring Peeper

   One of those close land preserve walks I did was at Oak Knoll Sanctuary in Attleboro. Laurie and I went for a walk on all of the trails. I found a few salamanders while flipping rocks. The big prize, however, was found by Laurie. She found two frogs hopping in the leaves. One was a baby Wood Frog.  The other was a Spring Peeper! While I hear Peepers almost every night during the warmer months, they are tough to see. I've only seen them once before. So Laurie's find was huge in my book. 

Nov 3

Sedge Wren

    Charles and I planned on trying for a salamander so rare in Rhode Island that the best herpetologist in the state has only seen them a couple of times. It was a long shot but if he found one we would be heroes. The species is called a Spring Salamander. They only live along small streams that flow west into ONE watershed in northwest Connecticut. Also, if you find fish in those streams, the salamanders probably won't be there.

   However, we changed out plans the night before because a Sedge Wren was found at Napatree. Never heard of them? Well, this one I had. I got a brief look at one years ago in Marshfield, MA. I counted it but after becoming an experienced birder I decided the look I had was so awful, I took it off of my list. It turned out that Charles had a similar terrible look at his only RI Sedge Wren. So... off we went to Napatree. 

   We ran into my friend Tim at Napatree and the three of us looked for the bird for two hours before it showed itself. The first look was awful for me. Charles and I were standing together and Tim was in front of us about twenty feet. The bird popped up ten feet in front of Tim but he didn't see it. I saw it and I kept explaining to him where it was. When he got on it, he lifted his camera for a photo. I did the same. The bird ducked back into cover. Tim got one photo but I did not get any! Luckily, twenty minutes later the bird popped up again. It wasn't nearly as close but it was up for a good thirty seconds and I took a dozen photos. None will ever be on my wall, but they were good enough to confirm what I saw on my ebird report. The Sedge Wren was my first lifer in Rhode Island this year and only my third overall. 

 

Red Fox

   We left Napatree at noon. On our way out a fox that clearly had been fed by people walked up to my car. Never one to miss an easy photo op I took some photos after getting my camera. While it made the photos easy, this is the reason you shouldn't feed wildlife. This animal will get hit by a car begging for food sooner and not later. 

   We decided to go try for the Spring Salamanders. It took an hour to find one of those perfect little streams. We walked up the hill and tried to find some salamanders but did not. We looked at it as a scouting mission anyway. We did see two snakes and a frog. Despite the temperature being fifty five degrees there were two Garter Snakes sunning themselves. I caught both of them but the second one was so cold, it didn't move. I'm sure that after the initial fear that I was a predator, it was happy to be warmed by a warm blooded animal for a couple of minutes.

   So over the course of my adventures, I got a lifer Two Lined Salamander, a lifer Western Mosquitofish, a great look at a Red Fox, my second ever Spring Peeper, and a lifer/ state bird Sedge Wren. The Sedge Wren ended up being my four hundredth life bird

A very cold Garter Snake