Mountain Life
  • Daily Content
    • Trips & Expeditions
    • Climbing
    • Mountain Biking
    • Mountain Lifer
    • Multiplicity
    • On The Trail
    • Paddling
    • Photography
    • Skiing
    • Snowboarding
    • Stay & Play
    • Surfing
    • The Great Outdoors
    • The ML Interview
    • Travel
  • GEAR
  • VIDEOS
  • STORE
  • Magazines
    • ML Coast Mountains
    • ML Rocky Mountains
    • Vie En Montagne
    • ML Blue Mountains
    • ML Annual
    • ML Subscriptions
  • ABOUT
    • What is ML?
    • Our Team
    • Newsletter
    • Adventure Grant
    • Distribution
  • Podcast
  • Contests
  • CONTACT
    • ML Agency
    • Advertising
    • Contribute
Subscription Form

Get notified of the best News

Social Links
Instagram 22K Followers
Facebook 25K Likes
Twitter 5K Followers
Pinterest 1K Followers
Vimeo 34 Followers
LinkedIn 0
22K Followers
25K Likes
5K Followers
1K Followers
Mountain Life
Mountain Life
  • Daily Content
    • Trips & Expeditions
    • Climbing
    • Mountain Biking
    • Mountain Lifer
    • Multiplicity
    • On The Trail
    • Paddling
    • Photography
    • Skiing
    • Snowboarding
    • Stay & Play
    • Surfing
    • The Great Outdoors
    • The ML Interview
    • Travel
  • GEAR
  • VIDEOS
  • STORE
  • Magazines
    • ML Coast Mountains
    • ML Rocky Mountains
    • Vie En Montagne
    • ML Blue Mountains
    • ML Annual
    • ML Subscriptions
  • ABOUT
    • What is ML?
    • Our Team
    • Newsletter
    • Adventure Grant
    • Distribution
  • Podcast
  • Contests
  • CONTACT
    • ML Agency
    • Advertising
    • Contribute
  • Ontario

The Underappreciated Underworld Of Amphibians

  • May 16, 2019
  • Mountain Life Media
Total
19
Shares
19
0
0
0
0
0
Total
19
Shares
Share 19
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0

The Kingdom of Spring: Amphibians at play, uncensored and uninhibited. Words:: Leslie Anthony.

The late March woods in Haliburton, Ontario, are quiet and sullen. Morning’s blue sky has succumbed to obdurate grey, drawn like a shade from one horizon to the other, painting leafless hardwoods and crusty snow in black-and-white monotones.   

The thick ice crowning a large beaver pond is barely free of the shore, but water glistens darkly in the few places it has pulled back. Scents of pine and cedar tumble through the air, but the trees themselves look frozen in time. The afternoon pall is an allusion to life-fled-the-land, but a warm south wind smells of rain and I’m pretty sure that later, all hell will break loose. 

That night in town, people crowd into McKeck’s to watch NHL Stanley Cup playoffs on the big screen. As in most of Canada, springtime here means hockey, maple syrup, and a long-awaited respite from the cold. But while we humans measure spring’s air of renewal in cultural terms, some animals are tied to a more stringent metric: it’s the only time of year an individual might see another of its kind. Naturally, such encounters engender a certain kind of urgency—one that can also get biologists excited. Maybe too excited: while Don Cherry analyzes another punch-up on Hockey Night in Canada, I’m supervising an orgy near Lake Kashagawigamog.  

Swept on strong gusts, the predicted rain sifts through the forest, coalescing as large drops that tumble from naked branches. Muffled noise in the leaf litter melds with the rain and a growing cacophony from the pond; in the dark, they’re the kind of sounds that make your skin crawl. The night is alive and the ground around me moves. No Hollywood special-effects tech could marshal what I track in my headlamp. 

Wood Frog Lithobates sylvaticus PD Moldowan 13
Wood frogs like this one are among the first amphibians to breed in the spring. Photo: Patrick Moldowan

Thousands of glistening amphibians have risen from the quiescence of the forest floor. Blind with purpose, they zig-zag towards the pond in drunken clusters, bouncing off each other like surprised billiard balls. This night it’s the Cold Crew—denizens of earliest spring: burnished wood frogs, tiny spring peepers, striking yellow-spotted salamanders and, in greatest abundance, glabrous blue-spotted salamanders. What this slippery mélange lacks in diversity is made up in sheer numbers: there are more of them within a metre of where I crouch than the average person sees in a lifetime. 

Given their cryptic habits, the best way to appreciate the secret world of amphibians is when the animals converge in spring to play out the drama of breeding, a prodigious burst of ritual advertisement, frantic courtship and furtive mating—like spring break in Daytona Beach without the booze. As time marches on in the Haliburton woods, so will the parade: chorus frogs, American toads, red-spotted newts, gray treefrogs, leopard frogs, green frogs, and bullfrogs will all aggregate in time-honoured sequence through April, May and June, an exquisite choreography rooted in the deep history of eastern North America’s rich amphibian fauna. As a graduate student studying these migrations, it was a dance I came to love. 

This is the first good rain of the breeding season, and I watch mesmerized as animals converge from every direction, swarming indifferently over snow, ice, rock and wood. Internal switches are firmly locked onto phase one: Must Get To Water. Put something in front of them, they go over it; put them in something, they climb out. Water, when it’s reached, becomes both sanctuary and medium for phase two: Must Mate. In my light, startled frogs leap into the darkness, while at the pond’s edge salamanders appear to sense the weight of their impending biological destiny; pausing briefly, they take one last look around before plunging beneath the ice. 

No Hollywood special-effects tech could marshal what I track in my headlamp.

Most terrestrial salamanders spend their lives in underground retreats, moving deeper during drier months and below frostline in winter. In spring, chockfull of hormones, water-breeding species await cues to begin a pilgrimage to ancestral ponds; when the ground thaws and a rainy night provides for optimal travel, it’s goin’ home time.  

I feel privileged to witness these nocturnal scrambles. Not simply because they are deeply fascinating or that so few people ever see such things, but because so few will ever have a chance to: disease, shrinking habitat and road mortality have made such spectacles increasingly rare. Habitat destruction tops the list in Canada, and includes the effects of clear-cutting, stream-channeling, pond-filling, wetland drainage, agriculture and pollutants. Because their semi-permeable skins and typically biphasic life cycles make amphibians indicators of local environmental health and climatic trends, their current worldwide decline bodes poorly for a global environment on which we also depend. 

Because amphibians are adapted to specific regimens for breeding, larval development, and adulthood, climatic flux acting at any juncture can affect both populations and overall distribution. Global warming, for instance, will favour a few species but be detrimental to most. In southern Ontario, increasingly frequent mid-winter mild spells have prompted premature breeding by some species, whose eggs are then destroyed by freezing when weather returns to seasonal norms. At the other extreme, exceptionally hot spring days cause water temperatures to skyrocket, accelerating fungal, algal and bacterial growth with accompanying rapid depletion of dissolved oxygen that can kill eggs or cause developmental abnormalities, effects that are exacerbated when shade vegetation that moderates water temperature is cut from the margins of aquatic habitats.  

While human activities and fragmented habitat drive local amphibian extinctions, what happens during natural climatic shifts? Basically, the same thing—changing distributions of species adapted to particular ecological/climatic associations. The difference is that these occur gradually over vast periods of time as part of larger, integrated change.  

The hockey games and bars are long since done when I finally turn off my light at the beaver pond. Billions of raindrops fall in any instant, but in the dark, where sounds are always clearer, I differentiate between the tattoo drummed over the forest floor and the atmospheric noose closing around the pond, where hundreds of frogs cluck and whistle. My final thought is that even superficial understanding of such little-known netherworlds grants awkward membership: if I were a frog or salamander, I’d know just where to go and what to do. —ML

 

Total
19
Shares
Share 19
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Share 0
Share 0
Related Topics
  • Amphibians
  • animals
  • nature
  • Ontario
  • outdoors
Mountain Life Media

Previous Article
  • The Great Outdoors

The World’s Lightest Portaledge Has Arrived

  • May 14, 2019
  • Ben Osborne
View Post
Next Article
  • The Great Outdoors

Burton Takes A Stand For Women

  • May 18, 2019
  • Ben Osborne
View Post
You May Also Like
Mountain-Life-Blue-Mountains-stack-winter-2023
View Post
  • On The Trail
  • Ontario
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding
  • Trips & Expeditions

ML Blue Mountains Winter-Spring ’23 Issue Out Now

  • Ned Morgan
  • January 6, 2023
Mountain-Life-Blue-Mountains-Ontario-collage-photos
View Post
  • Ontario
  • Photography

Gallery: Fall and Winter in Ontario

  • Mountain Life Media
  • November 14, 2022
Colin-Field_weekender-ride-fall-colours-Ontario-crop
View Post
  • Mountain Biking
  • Ontario

The Weekender Ride

  • Mountain Life Media
  • November 10, 2022
Greenman-Acres-Cannabis-farm-Colin-Field-drone
View Post
  • Food & Drink
  • Mountain Lifer
  • Ontario

Green Tsunami: Behind the Scenes at an Organic Cannabis Farm

  • Mountain Life Media
  • November 3, 2022
Action-Takers-Mountain-Life-Ontario
View Post
  • On The Trail
  • Ontario
  • Paddling
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding

The Action-Takers

  • Mountain Life Media
  • October 20, 2022
Skiis-and-Biikes-Crystal-Magic-tuner-10
View Post
  • Ontario
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding

Behind the Scenes with Skiis & Biikes’ New Robotic Tuner

  • Mountain Life Media
  • October 7, 2022
Mountain-Life-Blue-Mountains-cover-Jenna-Kitchings-Collingwood-surf-crop
View Post
  • In This Issue
  • On The Trail
  • Ontario
  • Paddling

ML Blue Mountains Fall ’22 Issue Out Now

  • Mountain Life Media
  • October 6, 2022
View Post
  • Ontario
  • Skiing
  • Snowboarding

THE TORONTO SKI + SNOWBOARD SHOW

  • Sarah Bulford
  • October 1, 2022
Featured Posts
  • Life-Time-Grand-Prix-gravel-bike 1
    New Docuseries Profiles the World’s Elite Off-Road Cyclists
    • January 30, 2023
  • Fjallraven-Nuuk-Parka-daniel-blom-photo_jacket 2
    Gear Shed: Multisport Winter Roundup
    • January 26, 2023
  • Brian-Hockenstein-surfing-Iceland-water-and-ice-ML 3
    In the Land of Water & Ice
    • January 24, 2023
  • L'Hymne-des-Trembles-Laurentians-Quebec 4
    L’Hymne des Trembles: Uncompromising Laurentian Skiing
    • January 27, 2023
  • Marie-Pier-Desharnais-A-Womans-Experience-on-K2-flag-crop 5
    Marie-Pier Desharnais: A Woman’s Experience on K2
    • January 23, 2023
RECENT POSTS
  • Wachs_Fairly-Mellow
    Friday Flick: “Fairly Mellow” at Fairy Meadow Hut
    • January 20, 2023
  • Paul-Manning-Hunter-Kananaskis-River-surf
    Behind the Photo: Rockies Edition
    • January 19, 2023
  • knorthphotography.Beverly-Glenn Copeland-crop
    Beverly Glenn-Copeland: Finding the Universal Broadcast
    • January 17, 2023
Social Links
Instagram 22K Followers
Facebook 25K Likes
Twitter 5K Followers
Pinterest 1K Followers
Vimeo 34 Followers
LinkedIn 0
INSTAGRAM
mountainlifemedia
22K Followers
Winter commute with #mountainlifer @michelle_pittam ❄️🚵‍♀️🌲
@lhymnedestrembles.ca is no mirage. Set in the lush Laurentian forest, yet easily accessible (less than an hour and a half from Montreal), this luxurious ski-in ski-out residential resort by @groupebrivia is nestled at the foot of the Versant Soleil side of Mont Tremblant. The Tremblant region is a perennial destination for outdoor enthusiasts from around the world, and within the province, attracting 3.5 million visitors annually.
ML staff and gear partners highlight the latest jackets, boards, crampons, hoodies, insoles and bindings in alpha order. #Linkinbio to learn more!
Adventures like this one require an inspiring team. @timemmett is a longtime friend, adventure partner and extraordinary human; an explorer, pro climber, surfer, freediver—you name it. @luca.freediver is an incredibly talented freediver, fresh off breaking the Canadian national freediving record (85 metres). The fourth man on the team, @brianhockenstein, is a filmmaker and multi-talented snowboarder always ready to jump into the fray and capture the magic. - words Jimmy Martinello. #Linkinbio to learn more!
We came in search of the connection of the human spirit to both art and adventure, whether climbing from the depths of moulins and ice caves, breaking through ice while paddleboarding fjords, climbing icebergs, freediving between tectonic plates or surfing cold waves.
A thousand and one things could have gone wrong, but she made it to the top:  @mariepier.desharnais is the first Quebecois woman to climb K2.
Mountain Life is a proud member of the @printreleaf_ community. So far we've offset our print by having 1,737 trees reforested since joining in 2019! 🌲
GUESS WHAT! It's FRIDAY! Here's a flick to kick off the weekend for all you warriors.
Behind the scenes of three action photos from ML’s Rocky Mountains edition.
The @banffmountainfestival 2023 Signature Image Search is on🚨
Follow

Subscribe

Subscribe now to our newsletter

Winter commute with #mountainlifer @michelle_pittam ❄️🚵‍♀️🌲
@lhymnedestrembles.ca is no mirage. Set in the lush Laurentian forest, yet easily accessible (less than an hour and a half from Montreal), this luxurious ski-in ski-out residential resort by @groupebrivia is nestled at the foot of the Versant Soleil side of Mont Tremblant. The Tremblant region is a perennial destination for outdoor enthusiasts from around the world, and within the province, attracting 3.5 million visitors annually.
ML staff and gear partners highlight the latest jackets, boards, crampons, hoodies, insoles and bindings in alpha order. #Linkinbio to learn more!
Adventures like this one require an inspiring team. @timemmett is a longtime friend, adventure partner and extraordinary human; an explorer, pro climber, surfer, freediver—you name it. @luca.freediver is an incredibly talented freediver, fresh off breaking the Canadian national freediving record (85 metres). The fourth man on the team, @brianhockenstein, is a filmmaker and multi-talented snowboarder always ready to jump into the fray and capture the magic. - words Jimmy Martinello. #Linkinbio to learn more!
We came in search of the connection of the human spirit to both art and adventure, whether climbing from the depths of moulins and ice caves, breaking through ice while paddleboarding fjords, climbing icebergs, freediving between tectonic plates or surfing cold waves.
A thousand and one things could have gone wrong, but she made it to the top:  @mariepier.desharnais is the first Quebecois woman to climb K2.
Mountain Life
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Advertising

Input your search keywords and press Enter.