Rain!!! It finally rained!

Thought it would  never happen, but we finally got some rain today.  Had some good downpours and thunderstorms.  I know not everyone is so thrilled for rain, but we were long overdue---and the salamanders seemed to be getting desperate.  First thing that needed to get done is the guys had to finish “processing” the over 400 that came into the bay the other day because tonight will likely be a good night for mating so they really wanted to get those manders back out there.  David returned them around 5pm today and saw that new animals were already moving into the bay and some males were already doing some mating behavior.  Again, this isn’t the norm around here---you’d expect them not to start moving and mating until later at night, but I guess when you finally get some rain you go for it.  Several of us went out tonight to see what’s going on, collect some of them from the buckets so there won’t be too many in the buckets in the morning, and to make sure they all have “flotation devices.”  I have a postdoc from Univ. of Missouri visiting this week so I took her out and she loved it!  She had a much better camera with her than I did so tomorrow I’ll post some better photos.  They were moving every where you looked--so much so that you had to walk very carefully and shine your light everywhere you are thinking about stepping. You can pick up all the ones along one stretch of fence, then turn around and do it again b/c there are so many moving around.  It’s just really cool when you think about the fact they were out in the woods out of sight just a bit ago and then like magic they all show up in one place.  We just got back a while ago and plan is to be back out there early tomorrow so the photos tonight are a bit rushed---basically starting in the upper left and going clockwise you’ve got: a bucket full, three that had been hanging out together by the fence until I showed up and they started moving apart, one about to drop into a bucket full, two that were doing a bit of the circular motion mating display, one climbing over a log, and one literally on the fence.  Salamanders rock.