{"id":13806,"date":"2014-03-20T16:51:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T21:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=13806"},"modified":"2014-03-20T16:51:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T21:51:36","slug":"spring-rain-sparks-salamander-congress-on-massachusetts-southcoast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=13806","title":{"rendered":"Spring Rain Sparks Salamander Congress on Massachusetts SouthCoast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-000-960.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13809\" title=\"post yss 000 480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-000-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"324\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-000-480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-000-480-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Yellow Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) Heading to Congress<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A bitter, seemingly interminable winter has lingered in the\u00c2\u00a0 Great White North.\u00c2\u00a0 Most ponds, creeks and bog channels remain largely iced.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, after midnight, a spring rain descended on Massachusetts&#8217; SouthCoast with gradually warming temperatures that reached into the low to mid 40s.\u00c2\u00a0 So, in the wee hour darkness, Sue Wieber Nourse of the Turtle Journal team ventured out to a nearby wetlands to see if these conditions would spark a salamander congress.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-010-960.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13813\" title=\"post yss 010 480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-010-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"651\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-010-480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-010-480-221x300.jpg 221w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Yellow Spotted Salamander on First Day of Spring (March 20)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Crossing a dirt roadway separating swampy woodlands from bog channels where we have documented an annual congress in previous years, a handsome yellow spotted salamander slithered through the soaking darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue saw this moving &#8220;twig&#8221; in the glare of her headlights and managed to snag him before he\u00c2\u00a0disappeared into the bog.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-021-960.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13815\" title=\"post yss 021 480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-021-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"320\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-021-480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/post-yss-021-480-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>Ventral Side of Yellow Spotted Salamander<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">These are lovely creatures who, for us, create the surest mark of emerging Spring.\u00c2\u00a0 We returned to the bog later in the morning, but did not find any signs of spermataphores or egg masses.\u00c2\u00a0 Also, we found no wood frogs. which we normally observe in these same bog channels.\u00c2\u00a0 Still too early and too cold, I fear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/crocus-001-960.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-13807\" title=\"crocus 001 480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/crocus-001-480.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/crocus-001-480.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/crocus-001-480-300x275.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>First Crocus at Turtle Journal Central Blooms on First Day of Spring<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">There was another Spring surprise for us this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 At Turtle Journal Central, our first crocus of the year bloomed on this first day of Spring.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yellow Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) Heading to Congress A bitter, seemingly interminable winter has lingered in the\u00c2\u00a0 Great White North.\u00c2\u00a0 Most ponds, creeks and bog channels remain largely iced.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, after midnight, a spring rain descended on Massachusetts&#8217; SouthCoast with gradually warming temperatures that reached into the low to mid 40s.\u00c2\u00a0 So, in the wee [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[402,826],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13806"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13835,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13806\/revisions\/13835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}