We do MOnthly Meetups!

We aim for the "Last-sunday-of-the-Month"
usually, but missed this time!
guided fungi foray - Sunday july 14th, from 10am to noon at the Hartford town forest

 

We sometimes procrastinate organizing these meetups because it promotes creativity. That is not actually why we procrastinate organizing these meetups… The Salamander Team does monthly meetups because the amphibian migration only really happens for a month or two from around the start of April until well into May… we needed an excuse to keep talking about year round so that we could get people ready to go out to the amphibian road crossings to help the frogs and salamanders get across safely during those spring migration nights (when it’s rainy, and above 40 degrees).

 

And so we’ll be doing a monthly meetup likely near this month’s last Sunday, most probably from 10am to noon. But in the meantime, it has been raining a bunch. And so in addition to all the cool moths that are now out and about, so too are some neat fungi. It’s been a big couple of weeks for slime molds fruiting (during this mid-June), and the Hartford Town Forest has yielded some shiny new mushroom and other fungal fruiting as well – so far I have personally found a good number of gilled and pored varieties, but no toothed ones yet.

 

Our fungi adventure in the town forest is taking place July 14th from 10am to noon, by which time some toothed mushrooms might be out and observable for our party. We’ll have a guide present to help attendees learn some fungal ecology and identification skills, and we’ll do our best to find as many fungi as we can (mostly to photograph and record to iNaturalist). We have some Salamander Team members that are particularly interested in the Fungal Diversity Survey project that aims to figure out the full list of fungi species residing in the region. With that said, our conversation on fungal identification will devote a good bit of attention to DNA analysis techniques and tools

 

Please send a note to HartfordSalamanderTeam@gmail.com to RSVP, and to join the email list for event updates. You can also send a note to get on the list for info and updates on the amphibian volunteer training as we get closer to the season

 

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These meetups have a guide present – a naturalist or science educator of sorts, to help make the experience more educational for everyone. But you’re also encouraged to bring and share what you already know, along with your curiosities and open questions. If there’s a topic in particular you enjoy studying we’d all love to hear about it. Everyone can play a teaching role, that mindset has made our 12 meetups (its been a year!) so far quite rich and fun.  Even at meetups where we’re stung by wasps (July was exciting), or fail to find our target species (like in April when the vernal pool we visited was still frozen and apparently lifeless), everyone seems to have a laugh together and learn something new. That sense of “community” that’s so present each last-sunday-of-the-month is one of the main reasons we’re keeping on with the monthly meetups!

 

The meetups exist in large part to connect the neighbors participating in the regional Salamander Team project, aimed to help frogs and salamanders migrate safely each spring (they often have to cross roads and get run over by car traffic). If you’d like to join the conversation on the Salamander Team community project, you’re invited to join the email list. In addition to the meetups, we are slowly and steadily figuring out how to set up bigger educational opportunities for all of us, like a comprehensive Plant ID program. 

 

 

As always, send an email or facebook message to RSVP or to join the email list for more details on our shenanigans. 

PAST MONTHLY MEETUPS... WE LOOK TO PHENOLOGY TO PICK EVENT THEMES
... It's june 2024 as of this update, but the below content hasn't been updated since early 2023 ...

 

February 2023rd’s “Last-Sunday-of-the-Month” meetup was our 10th one! And it was the last one before our annual volunteer training and team training, which was held remotely on Monday evening March 13th.

 

 

Anyway, this month’s meetup was Sunday February 26, from 10am-noon at Paradise Park in Windsor. We had a special guest guiding our adventure this time, who had personal experience with past research surveys done on local mammal populations. Wessel’s Reading the Forested Landscape also got special attention in our discussion, so feel encouraged to remember where you left that book. This guide was (and is still) also one of people most familiar with the Windsor Grassland, which is a gorgeous space just down the road from Paradise Park where snow buntings have been seen in recent months. 

 

Sunday January 29 was supposed to be "subnivean lifestyles and deep snow hunting strategies" but instead we stared at speckled alder tongue galls

Boston Lot Lake is a short uphill to an interesting loop around the lake, crossing over a small dam and past some power line clearings that make for interesting warbler potential in spring, and inevitable intimate encounters with speckled alder during the bare winter. There are a number of clusters of the shrubby shrub even before really reaching the loop, displaying their little cones and catkins both simultaneously (monoecious is a cool word)… and in some places we found strange looking desicated leafy bits erupting from the cones. Thanks to a diligent salamander team member and a lot of up-close staring, it was ID’d as a fungal plant pathogen (taphrina alni) causing a bunch of alder tongue galls. When those were fresh, they apparently would have been tongue colored. If lucky they look disguised as flower petals (maybe..), but otherwise they look like slightly unsettling tongues… either way its just a sneaky but otherwise friendly (to us) fungus

Sunday November 27 was something like
"Hibernation and the Gradations in the Art of Napping,"
... at hartford's Hurricane forest wildlife refuge

November we got together at the Hurricane Forest Wildlife Refuge in Hartford! That’s a lesser known spot (apparently) that’s definitely recommended – once again we had luck and found a little eastern red-backed salamander and a bunch of fungi. Plus we saw enough fresh woodpecker holes that we were able to compare the shapes and sizes that the different species create. Our group spent a good deal of time talking about the amphibian conservation part of the Salamander Team project, which honestly we usually forget to mention with everything there is to look at and talk about. The monthly meetups are a great time to meet some other amphibian crossing guard volunteers, and to ponder ways you might enjoy getting involved in a way or another.

October we called "Landscapes Preparing for Winter"
marsh-billings-Rockefeller Natl' Park, near Woodstock, Vt

With October now past, the Salamander Team had its 7th monthly meetup on this glorious Sunday! We met near the parking lot for the Marsh Billings Rockefeller farm museum, then we did our longest hike yet up to the Pogue.

Our guide this time was versed in the background of the farm (and the wider park), so we learned history as we encountered stuff like a patient barred owl, a red backed salamander, mallards and mergansers and a turtle… and a bunch of fungi, many of which we were able to ID! We were even able to find some chaga to show the group what it looks like, and we luckily had someone in attendance that knew how to make decoctions and tea. That’s kind of par the course with these meetups.

September was "Ecology from a Mountain Vista"
Wright's Mountain in Bradford VT

The background’s a neat view of the meetup spot from the day – Wright’s Mountain in Bradford.

The Salamander Team meets every last-sunday-of-the-month from roughly 10 to noon at a different pretty nature spot around the neighborhood (usually with an expert naturalist to help everyone learn more). This time we went as far north as we have yet to, teaming up with the Bradford Conservation Commission to log some species from their wonderful mountain trail system. The hike from the north parking lot is maybe the most efficient possible in terms of steps-taken to an amazing view. Feels like you don’t really walk at all then there’s a couple of different huge vistas to choose from. At this meetup we saw an unidentified giant bird (maybe an osprey? it had confusing colors, like white patches in unexpected spots) and paid special attention to the plant communities ascending the mountainside. It’s really easy to spend 30 minutes standing in one spot talking about a shrub.

August's Insect "Net-working" Event - With Real Nets!
East End Park in Woodstock, VT

The August Insect “Net-working” event happened to land on a beautifully perfect morning, continuing our streak of lucky weather conditions for the salamander team’s monthly meetup. April was about vernal pools, May about spring ephemerals, June about orchids in the bog, July about fungi, August we chased bugs with nets!

We were at East End Park near Woodstock (which has a beautiful little trail that crosses through a surprising number of distinct habitats), led by a specialist in Lady Beetles (and we learned how to contribute to the Vermont Center for Ecostudies’ Lady Beetle Atlas). We found a number of butterflies, moths, flies and hoverflies and wasps, several species of bees, more mergansers and a couple bald eagles, numerous leaf-hoppers and leaf-eaters and eaters of leaf-eaters. East End Park is a beautiful little spot, highly recommended!

July's fungi Foray and wasp-hangout
At our homebase: the Hartford Town Forest in Hartford, VT

July’s Fungi Foray

In July we had a wonderful crowd, and our party happened to experience the bad kind of exciting encounter with some very social insects at our Fungi Foray. You can maybe ask about it on the 28th, but the memory is still pretty fresh… Still, we did also find some awesome examples of amanitas and russulas (and lobster mushrooms) and some curious polypores. Plus found an interesting morph of a little salamander, along with frogs in a stream and sting-soothing plants. We happened to have a couple of nurses in attendance, but we also had a handful in attendance with knowledge of medical applications of local plants and fungi. Meetups are a fun chance to learn about our community’s knowledge and passions.

June Bog party with the showy lady slippers
the one and only Eschua Bog in Hartland, VT

Thanks to our guide Ryan Rebozo, we got to Eschua Bog just as the lady slippers were at their most showy (Ryan is Director of Conservation Science at Hartford’s own Vermont Center for Ecostudies. Also, he’s parent of a goose that he just dug a pond for.) Ryan taught our little group about all of Eschua’s plants (there were a huge number of flowers beyond just the orchids) as we enjoyed rhubarb coffee cake thoughtfully baked by a beloved Salamander Team member.

Some highlights from this month’s adventure included a small fly that succumb to some sort of fungal pathogen (probably not a cordycep, but still cool and sinister looking), Eschua’s pitcher plant, a slightly hidden (also carnivorous) sundew, showy lady slippers, some polypores (inspected up in trees at the cost of some bodily injury), and potentially a white bog orchid (?!? It was slightly off in the distance). We also seemed to have great luck with moth species.

May 29 was our Spring Ephemeral Scavenger Hunt
at the homebase, Hartford town forest on Reservoir road

It was wonderful to spend time with some team members that Sunday morning, exploring the Hartford Town Forest and looking/listening for ephemerals and visitors and year-round presences. Fantastic to meet some new people and make new friends. Somehow magically, we ran into a local mountain biker that was able to share a beautiful history of the Hartford Town Forest (and adjacent Hurricane Forest Wildlife Refuge). More than one of us later remarked “it was like we hired him.” Great to meet you Bill, thanks for that. To everyone, thank you so much for bringing all you do to this inspiring little community. It’s wonderful that we’re now actively pondering new ways that we can all get together and interact

April was our first ever in-person meetup! vernal pool visit in
the glorious Hartford town forest!

Our First Ever In-person Meet-up!  April 10 – Vernal Pool Guided Tour

Long-time Hartford resident Jon Bouton led the group to a vernal pool in the Hartford Town Forest (parking lot on Reservoir Road). The pool was still frozen at the base and we didn’t observe amphibian activity, but that pool has been known to host rarer mole salamander varieties like the Jefferson.

 

This pool is exciting to Hartford residents because its been actively contributing to salamander species surveys! The Conservation Commission has research permits to safely (without harming the critters) catch and count the total numbers of different salamander species that show up on Big Nights during their spring migration. That catch-and-count activity sometimes offers locals a rare opportunity to see dozens if not hundreds of yellow-spotted salamanders in broad daylight. Or, ya know, we might show up a little too early in the season and just see ice. Still fun to hang out with the community

 

 

 

 

      hi 🙂