Pond Life, Part 2 - Amphibians and Reptiles

Spring Peeper with inflated throat

On a spring evening you know you're near a pond when the air fills with frog romance from a chorus of Peepers.

Wood Frog

You're also likely to hear plaintive quacking sounds from Wood Frogs. Creatures that are difficult to see otherwise can be observed on a night patrol with the Cape Ann Vernal Pond Team (CAVPT).

Rick Roth and protégée

Team founder Rick Roth has inventoried wetlands and their wildlife at Halibut Point State Park. "When I was five years old I caught a Northern Brown Snake on my way home from kindergarten in Illinois. That was sixty-three years ago. I've been fascinated particularly by reptiles and amphibians ever since. Before that I was into dinosaurs, and of course I still am, but we couldn't find dinosaurs in our local fields and streams and ponds. A lot of kids would say to me, Hey, you know where to find snakes and frogs and salamanders, why don't you take me out with you and show me where you go? Sure enough, we'd find stuff, and some of 'em would be my hunting buddies forever."

Swimming salamanders

Salamander egg mass

"Massachusetts is the first state to come up with protection for vernal pools. The big deal is that because they dry up in the summer time, they have no fish. Salamanders and wood frogs can't live in a pond with fish because the fish will eat all their eggs. They thrive in vernal pools."

Eastern Red-spotted Newt, juvenile terrestrial phase

Salamanders hatch and spend their larval development in the water. Those born in vernal ponds have to accomplish this phase quickly before summer drought, and then crawl off to life in the leaf litter and rotting logs of the forest floor. The Eastern Red-spotted Newt is a salamander with a peculiar three-phased lifespan.

Eastern Red-spotted Newt under water in its adult aquatic phase

Having exchanged its gills for lungs the juvenile newt, or eft, typically spends two to three years on land, then finds a pond and transforms back into an entirely aquatic adult. But an individual newt may skip this terrestrial phase altogether. Or, if it finds a particular pond unsatisfactory because of overcrowding or too many parasites, it may transition into a fourth stage as a terrestrial adult. Ultimately it will have to return to water if it is to breed and reproduce.

Green Frog, with a ridge of skin running along the back above the shoulder

All of the pond creatures we have seen so far are classed as amphibians. They spend at least part of their life cycle in water and lay their eggs there. Their thin, delicate, often mucousy skin can exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with water and air.

Bullfrog

In the long chain of evolution, amphibians developed as certain fish began to adapt to life on land. They are still greatly dependent on a moist environment.

A terrestrial Milk Snake at Halibut Point

The dry, scaly skin of reptiles, on the other hand, enables them to survive drought and in some cases salt water. Unlike amphibians born in the water that undergo metamorphoses to reach maturity (think tadpole), their young hatch from eggs on land as miniature adults, or directly within the mother. Both reptiles and amphibians are cold-blooded. They rely on external sources of heat to regulate their body temperature.

The Ribbon Snake has a slender body

and unmarked upper lip.

Two lookalike local snakes are adept swimmers, the Ribbon and Garter Snakes.

The Garter Snake, often stockier,

with characteristic dark vertical markings on its upper lip

A Garter Snake approaching a frog

The frog leaps to avoid capture

Blanding's and Painted Turtles

Turtles are the other reptiles besides snakes occasionally seen at Halibut Point. These species can travel considerable distances overland but spend most of their time in ponds. Unlike amphibians whose single neck vertebra limits articulation, turtles can stretch, turn, and lunge their multiple cervical vertebrae as part of the adjustment for the reconfiguration and fusing of many skeletal parts into a protective shell.

"Wildlife does a wonderful job of maintaining the earth. Water is a key to all of this. It's a hotspot of forest activity, almost anywhere you find it. Amphibians and reptiles are part of the big picture. When I say wildlife I include the plants and the trees and the ferns and the fungus and everything. If it's alive and it's not in captivity, it's wildlife in my book. It's an interwoven fabric."...Rick Roth

Pond Life, Part 1

The busiest ecological communities on Halibut Point must be its ponds, home to a vast biologic chain of energy transformations beginning with photosynthesis. Its diverse creatures cycle through patterns of creation and death, feeding on and being eaten by others in the chain.

Blue Dasher Dragonfly perched on budding Yellow Pond Lily (Nuphar variegata)

Bullfrog beside flowering Watershield (Brasenia schreberi)

Common Duckweed (Lemna minor)

Courting pair of Mallard ducks

Mother Mallard with ducklings and

Sweet-scented Water Lily (Nymphaea odorata)

Exuviae (exoskeletons) anchored to Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata) stems.

One night in June the dragonfly nymphs crawled out of their aquatic phase

to molt into winged creatures of the air.

A dragonfly exuvia on a Pickerelweed flower

A Hummingbird moth with long proboscis

sipping nectar from a Pickerelweed flower

A female Ruby-throated hummingbird at Pickerelweed flower

A flower of the Common Bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris)

rising from submerged foliage for pollination

Eastern Forktail Damselfly

ovipositing eggs into bladderwort foliage

Probable Ribbon Snake (very similar to Garter Snake) crossing lily pads

Fish in the Babson Farm Quarry

Ponds and lakes that retain water year round can support fish, which add to the complexity of the food chain.

Spotted Salamander

Vernal (spring) ponds that dry up in the summer support the rapid reproduction phase of certain amphibians whose eggs and juveniles would otherwise be vulnerable to fish.

Green Heron

Pond reflections suggest the variety of ways that water comprises an essential element for organic life.

Halibut Point Wetlands

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) alongside the Babson Farm Quarry

Although Halibut Point is a coastal peninsula its wetlands are entirely fresh water features. No salt marshes, beaches, nor mud flats exist along its rocky shoreline.

In areas that retain moisture for at least part of the year water-loving plants like this Winterberry may form wetland communities thriving in a damp swale on the palisade of the spring-fed quarry.

A Tupelo tree (Nyssa sylvatica) growing beside cattails (Typha latifolia)

As water filled the deep, sheer-sided Babson Farm Quarry it formed a lake with very little plant life able to root except in a few shallow areas along margin.

Beaver

An itinerant beaver built a lodge behind the cattails and lived in the quarry lake for a few years. Normally beaver make their own ponds by damming a stream.

Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) above fruiting moss

Certain pockets in the moors above the quarry retain enough snowmelt and rain water to support micro wetlands. Plants in such places may have to concentrate their active growth in the spring.

Larger Blue Flag (Iris versicolor)

In areas where upland runoff concentrates steady moisture by the shoreline small wetlands dot the fringe of Halibut Point.

Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) with Cattails

These pockets lend a lush relief to the bare granite rim and weather-battered moors that surround them.

Great Blue Heron amidst Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)

Man-made ponds have developed in many of the old motions, the smaller quarrying sites shallow enough to host water plants. As distinct from the lake they support a rich variety of flora and fauna in temperate water and nutrient-rich muddy bottoms.

Sweet Pepper-bush (Clethra alnifolia)

Woodland depressions form damp shady habitat for life forms with those preferences like Sweet Pepper-bush, a shrub whose fragrance you're likely to detect in flower before you see it.

Catkins flowering on a branch of Speckled Alder (Alnus incana)

with Common Reed (Phragmites australis) in the background

Shallow standing water sites encourage Speckled Alder shrubs as well as the rampantly invasive Phragmites reed.

Pom-pom Peat Moss (Sphagnum wulfianum)

Occasionally poorly drained acidic conditions in a hollow pocket create conditions for development of a bog. Only a limited number of plants thrive here, in part because organic decay is inhibited and nutrients are not released to favor general growth. Sphagnum mosses do succeed in this environment and over time their remains contribute layers of peat.

Large Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon)

Cranberries notably colonize certain boggy locations.

Mink (Mustela vison)

One of the apex creatures of the Halibut Point wetlands is the Mink, an excellent swimmer and, like other members of the weasel family, an adept hunter of almost anything that moves in ponds and crevices.

Tiny Flowers

Out in the expansive vistas of Halibut Point I occasionally reverse focus to admire lilliputian wonders of the landscape.

Bluets - Houstonia caerulea

They might appear in crevices, at the base of trees, or within the towering jumble of a meadow.

Purple agalinis - Agalinis purpurea

How many such tiny flowers would fit on the platter of a dime?

Bird's-eye pearlwort - Sagina procumbens

Each one contains in miniature the architecture and intricacies of the botanical world.

Four-seeded vetch - Vicia tetrasperma

If you were shrunk to a tenth your size and gazed up, tiny wildflowers would have the aura of orchids.

Carey's smartweed - Persicaria careyi

Some have a preference for wetlands.

Sessile-leaved bellwort - Uvularia sessilifolia

Some accomplish their flowering cycle early in the woodland season before the tree foliation reduces light reaching the forest floor.

Whorled loosestrife - Lysimachia quadrifolia

Some have succeeded in the full sun of dry quarry grout piles, pointing blossoms to pollinators in the four directions.

Staghorn sumac - Rhus hirta

Trying to count the individual flowers in a sumac tree panicle is like guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar.

Corn speedwell - Veronica arvensis

Zooming in on its beguiling azure flower tempers the offense of this Eurasian invader having, as one commentator puts it, "a special talent for finding the one disturbed spot in an otherwise perfect lawn."

Scarlet pimpernel - Anagallis arvensis

Another Eurasian species achieving global distribution on the coattails of human enterprise, this member of the primrose family has adapted to the coastal margin at Halibut Point.

Bracted plantain - Plantago aristata

In the arid gravels of the ocean overlook it's easy for sightseers to miss a lowly plant with subdued colors but dramatic bract structures surrounding each inflorescence. It exemplifies the microcosmic discoveries tucked beside panoramas.