My New Obsession
- Morgan Cahill
- Sep 27, 2020
- 2 min read
On Monday morning, I started my practicum assignment. Check out who was excited to see us!
It has been a long time since I was so excited about a single thing that I spent my freetime learning about it. I spent a lot of my formative years obsessing over book series, but I haven't been invested in anything in that way since at least 2016.
It was quite the surprise when the only thing I wanted to talk about were all the cool salamanders I found and all I wanted to do was to continue finding them.
As a student in AP Environmental Science, we took a field trip to the Archibald Johnston Conservation Area. There was a guide to tell us about all the conservation efforts and how they mixed with the mission of preserving the history, and I distinctly remember her finding a salamander and squealing with excitement. She explained that they were indicators of a healthy ecosystem and it reflected positively on all the effort they've put into restoring Monocacy Creek. That was genuinely my only memory involving salamanders until now.
My practicum this semester is participating in a long term study on red-backed salamander populations, the most abundant salamander in this region.
On Monday, we found zero red-backed salamanders.
Upset and needing to practice our salamander catching skills, we traveled to Leach Pond and checked out spring close by. There, I caught my first salamander. We caught two-lined salamanders, dusky salamanders, and seal salamanders. Quite a few of the salamanders we found were in the process of regenerating limbs and tails, which was absolutely incredible to see.
On Thursday, my group went to sample for salamanders. We used different coverboards that hadn't been touched in a year. Anna and I finally got lucky. We found three red-backed salamanders and one red-spotted newt in its red eft life stage at that site! Kristal caught four other red-backed salamanders (that I assisted in handling).
Me with the newt before we released him.
We then moved sites and went to Leach Pond and different nearby spring. In the pond, two students found the adult stage of the red-spotted newt as well as five or six bullfrog tadpoles. We searched this new spring for timed intervals and found a few more two-lined salamanders.
Moral of the story: I'm in love with salamanders and you should be too :)
Comments