Where the heck have I been? Well, I’ve
been right here! Trust me…you're the one who hasn’t been showing up! I know
that seems ridiculous but you’re just a bit disoriented at the moment, trust me! Sit
down, take a deep breath, and I’ll give you a few moments to get your bearings.
OK? Feeling better? Great…onwards!!!
(I hope you bought that)
So, as you know (or maybe you don’t) the deep freeze has well set in, in the Pocono Mountains. The creatures have all “shut their doors and locked the locks until the vernal equinox” (to quote a jazz song). I mean, if you are a lover of creepy crawlies like me than the months of snow and ice have very little in store for you! It’s an interminable wait until spring!
But I said “little in store”
not “nothing in store!”
On Groundhog’s Day in 2013 I
found a comatose Red-Eared Slider floating in a pond in East Stroudsburg (she’s
OK now!)
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This slider I found in an icy pond was probably an abandoned pet!
|
And back in 2005 I found an injured musk turtle, also in February, by the pond
at Muriel Hepner Park in Denville, New Jersey!
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Injured Stinkpot that was being picked at by crows!
|
And just this last December 22 I
encountered another cool critter!
There was snow all over the
ground but the air temperature had briefly climbed into the high 40s (Fahrenheit)
one morning and just on a whim I flipped over a flat stone which normally is in
a very hot, sun baked portion of our yard.
I thought there might be a 1 in billion chance there was a sluggish
garter snake under it…hey, you never know!
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| The lay of the land in December of 2013 |
In 2008 The Pocono Record published a story about Monroe County
naturalist Brian Hardiman who found a Rat Snake basking in the sun on a snowy
October 30th and in the same article, Pocono naturalist, John Serrao mentions a Garter snake he found
in November! So who ever knows until you investigate!?
So I turned over the slab of red
shale and there, in almost a state of complete torpidity, was
this Red- backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus). Please don’t ask me what the heck “torpidity” means! I probably just made it up!
I know that
certain native amphibians like the Wood Frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) and the
Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) produce a natural type of antifreeze in their blood, a glucose
which enables them to survive bitter temperatures! A
matter of fact, Woodys are the only frog found as far north as Alaska and Labrador!
Red-backs, however, I thought steered clear of any and all winter weather, squirming their way down to almost 4 feet beneath the frost line! I have never
seen one this late in the season!
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| Arrow points to the exact spot where I found the salamander! |
James Petranka in “Salamanders of the United
States and Canada” writes,
“In the Atlantic coastal states, individuals are often active in winter during prolonged periods of warm weather.”
So maybe this
isn’t that unusual but this wasn’t a prolonged period! It was a few hours and
then the temps plummeted again!
Anyway, someone was as impressed as me because one of my shots of December’s salamander was published in The Pocono Record on January 12th of this year!
Well, that’s all
I have for everyone right now!
Merry meet and merry part and merry meet again!
I was wondering when you would be back.... How many of these critters that you rescued survived?
ReplyDeleteThanks for coming back anonymous! The Stinkpot sadly didn’t survive. The Slider, named groundhog, is still alive and well and I can only guess that they Red-backed is living too! The Red-backed was in its natural environment and wasn’t injured so I I left it to its own devices.
DeleteWhat month will the redbacks emerge? Does it depend solely on the temperatures?
ReplyDeleteMy personal findings in NJ and PA are that they usually emerge around late March or early April when the air temperature can climb into the low 50s during the day. In his book “The Natural Pocono Mountains” John Serrao would seem to concur with this as well. Thanks for reading!
DeleteAnonymous is me........ Barb
ReplyDelete