Earlier this month, the Sustainable Forestry Interns took a break from running chainsaws to join herpetologist Jim Andrews on his search to document the species currently found in Vermont, town by town. The day we met Jim, he was on a mission to document some of the species thought to be living in Morgan, VT.
After driving to the NorthWoods Demonstration Forest access in Morgan, we gathered with Jim and two volunteers to hear our goal for the day.
Jim started by explaining the habitat that we were looking for, “Most herps prefer hardwood forests, and plenty of downed wood. That’s mostly found in older forests. And most of them need water- seeps, beaver ponds, or streams. We’ll see what we find out here.”
Our walk started on a narrow woods road, hedged in by balsam fir- not ideal herp habitat- but we soon arrived at the largest beaver pond on the NorthWoods property. Almost immediately, Jim spotted a painted turtle basking in the distance, one of the species he hoped to document with photos. And as soon as we started sweeping a net around the edge of the pond, the species count started: we found the three “green faced” frog species (green frog, American bullfrog, and mink frog, the latter having an onion-y odor that Jim pointed out). Continuing our search, we waded through the edge of the pond and made our way upslope to an older northern hardwood stand, where we found seeps and downed logs, exactly the habitat we hoped for. As we started rustling through the leaves and turning over logs and rocks, even more species turned up: wood frog, spring peeper, American toad, northern dusky salamander, eastern red-backed salamander, and eastern newt.
On our way back to the cars, Jim checked on the list of species we’d hoped to find. Not all of them had turned up; the pickerel frog and spring salamander that we’d hoped to find had eluded us. But a couple of our finds were newly-reported species for the town of Morgan, or species that were known to exist but hadn’t been officially recorded in the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas. And we put in a good effort, learned about habitat and management strategies, and had a blast chasing, diving, and digging for herps, altogether earning our “merit badges” from Jim.
You can help document species in Vermont, too! The Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas relies on the hard work of Jim Andrews and his teams of volunteers to search, document and report findings, providing data that is used to inform conservation and habitat management. Check out vtherpatlas.org to learn about the species in Vermont, and how you can help report your findings. And if you’re looking for a place to search for herps in Charleston or Morgan, our Forest Stewardship staff can point you toward suitable habitat in the NorthWoods Demonstration Forest. Hope to see you out there!