December 21st, 2011

So today, on December 21, the classes at Laurel Creek saw a total of 8 frogs. One was hopping through the rain, and 7 were in a muddy hole beside our pond. Seems pretty odd to see frogs about on the last day of autumn. 

During yesterday’s class, we were walking beside the same pond, and I noticed the pond’s overflow pipe was clogged with mud and reeds. I scooped out the mucky mess with my hand, and tossed it on to the ice. One of the students yelled, “Salamander!”

It turns out it was a newt, an Eastern newt, crawling out of the muck I’d thrown on the ice. We had to pull a couple of milkweed plants out of the ground, and reach out to scoop him back to shore. I have only ever seen a newt once in our pond. They spend a portion of their lives terrestrially, living in the forest, and our pond is mostly surrounded by fields. Camp Heidelberg’s pond is surrounded by forest, so Al has lots of newts in his pond. Here is an eastern newt from Wikipedia.