by Mary Curran
4/22/2015

Dress appropriately for the weather; boots may be helpful, but are not necessary.  You can park in the high school lot and walk across the street. The vernal pool is a short walk into the property.  All are invited to this free program.

Marc Connelly, above in the green shirt, examines the contents of a bucket of pool water looking for creatures hidden in the leaf litter in April 2014.  During past walks, we have found caddis fly larvae, fresh water snails, and fairy shrimp. 

Here is a picture of two of the fresh water snails we found last year along the pool edge.  Marc does his best to find as many species of vernal pool life as he can, but we never know exactly what we will find on any given day!

Perhaps the star of the show is pictured below, an egg mass.  Frogs and salamanders return to their pools to breed in March or April, as soon as the weather starts to warm up.  They prefer to travel on a rainy night when the temperature is over 40 degrees.  This year the weather did not cooperate very well.  There was no “Big Night” when all of them moved at once, but the peeping in the pools around town tells us that they made it.

We hope that you will join us and see what we will discover this year, right here in Holliston, April 25th at 10:00 AM at the Daniels' Conservation Area.

In this picture, Marc holds a salamander egg mass.  It feels rather like Jello.  The green color comes from algae in the water.  In the next photo you can see the salamander larvae.