Category: Amphibians

More Activity at the Rock Pool

23/5/2017

By Lesley McLaren

Following my blog earlier this month about Fire salamander larvae, I returned on the 23rd, wondering if I could spot any different salamander or newt species.

After waiting for some time, I only saw two larvae that had legs, both of which were the Fire species. But while scanning the pool bed, something else caught my eye: a moving twig construction vaguely reminiscent of hermit crabs, but more closely resembling the bagworm moth caterpillars I blogged about in October 2016.

It was of course a caddisfly larva. I understand this is a sign that the water is unpolluted - something I'd expect here, to be honest.

Caddisfly Larva from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

Now that my attention was drawn to an area of the pool only just getting warmed by the sun, I spotted a frog tadpole snacking, which made me turn the camera to record again. I simply can't resist filming these - there's something about their roundness that makes me laugh.

It was only on playing the clip back that I noticed another caddisfly larva, below right, heaving its log-like house all over the place - and there appears to be at least one more moving around in dead leaves, above left! The naked eye simply misses all of this activity.

Salamander and Caddisfly and Larvae from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

I was disappointed not to see more salamander larvae - and no evidence of any adult frogs. But that might partly have been on account of my dog paddling to cool off while he waited for me. And I can't really blame him.

David meets Goliath

By and large, insects were proving more interesting and entertaining that day. Like the backswimmer in the following clip. It starts off right-side up - roughly in the centre of the picture and stationary for a while, before suddenly flipping over and swimming away. Extraordinary camouflage!

Backswimmer Beetle from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

A few days later, the salamander larvae were more active - or more visible to me at any rate. I was hoping to film one "sinking" vertically after surfacing. I didn't catch that, but towards the end of the next clip, one does demonstrate how they are prone to "let go" and sink - albeit horizontally in this instance. Could it be that the behaviour develops as their tails become less fish-like and therefore less effective for swimming?

Salamander larva sinking from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

Finally, at the risk of video overload, here are three toad tadpoles feeding - but as they continue to drift with the floating leaf, note the argy-bargy going on to the right. Are toad and frog tadpoles scrapping over plant matter or is a more violent attack in progress?

Tadpoles Feeding from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

Who knows what was going on there, but there's no denying the pool is still full of life. Long may it continue.

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Stream and Pond Life in the Albères

21/5/2017

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By Lesley McLaren

Between Sorède and Laroque, 190m up in the Albères, above a small weir, there's a rock pool that's worth checking out at this time of year. Fed by runoff from the slopes of Pic Néoulous it can by turn be a raging torrent after heavy rain and bone dry at the height of summer.

We've had a relatively wet spring but now the temperature is rising (29 degrees forecast for later this week!), the stream will dry up, the pool will rapidly stagnate and finally evaporate, which could spell disaster for some of the creatures in it.

I've seen tadpoles and tiny froglets there in previous years. What might 2017 bring? A few days ago I found out.

Late March

May

At the top of the path running up beside the weir, a red admiral butterfly settled for a few seconds on lush, damp grass near the water's edge. Wild mint was also growing here, giving off a delicious scent as I brushed past. After a few more steps, four or five frogs that must have been sunbathing on the nearest "shore", leapt and plopped in synchronised fashion, into the water. By the time I got to where they'd been sitting, they had completely disappeared, having buried themselves in the mud at the bottom, I expect.

It was some minutes later when movement by rocks to my right turned out to be a big frog with an impressive fluorescent yellow stripe running from the tip of his nose to his bottom.

Either Perez frog (Pelophylax perezei) - considered one of several "green frog" species, but colouring varies greatly, or Graf hybrid (Phelophylax kl. Grafi) - a hybridisation of Perez and Marsh frog.

It was good to see and hear water trickling down the rocks above, which meant the pool was still quite deep at the far end nearest the waterfall and just full enough to run over the edge of the weir. This aeration and gentle circulation meant it was crystal clear.

And teeming with tadpoles.

Those in the shallowest, sunniest patches of water were the liveliest, while others in the cooler, shaded areas appeared sluggish or asleep.

A few leaves, faded oak flowers and a dead bumblebee slowly drifted across the surface towards the weir, past dancing pond skaters, and above what I assumed were water boatmen - until a photo revealed that at least one was swimming upside down. I have since double-checked - it's a "backswimmer" not a boatman! I had never heard of them before.

Backswimmer (with tadpole)

I think this fast-swimming (out of focus!) giant beetle is a "Peardrop" (Cybister lateralmarginalis)

Mesmerised by the tadpoles - some of which seemed unusually huge - I must have stood there, fairly still, for about fifteen minutes. I don't know if staring through the water for that length of time helped me "get my eye in" or if it allowed other pond dwellers to get used to my presence and reveal themselves, but it was around then that I spotted a tiny fish. Then another. They were in a deeper section, further away, so it was impossible to see them well. The presence of any fish surprised me but I almost dismissed a niggle of doubt until I realised there was one much closer. And now I could see it had four legs. Not a fish at all.

Was this my first sighting of a newt?

The longer I looked the more of them I saw. When stationary, they look like just another piece of debris, but they can move fast when they want to, using legs and their fish-like tail to half-crawl, half-swim.

Knowing nothing about newts - and little about any amphibians - I had no idea what species they might be, but hoped that photos and a short video would help me find out. When I subsequently compared those with illustrations in the Flore et Faune des Pyrénées Méditerranéennes book, my question was quickly answered. (This proves that even poor photos can reveal details missed with the naked eye, and provide an invaluable aid to identification. Thanks to these pictures, I've also been able to get the ID verified by experts on a website dedicated to recording local wildlife sightings: faune-lr.)

They are fire salamander larvae (Salmandra salamandra) - at different stages of metamorphosis. What best distinguishes these from larvae of other species of salamander/newt are the pale dots where their legs join their bodies.

Fire Salamander Larvae from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

To begin with I assumed the "unusually huge tadpoles" - like the one in the clip - were younger larvae less advanced in their development. Subsequent research suggests they are in fact frog tadpoles. The black tadpoles will grow into toads.

From time to time one or two salamander larvae would swim to the surface, hang there vertically for a second, before letting themselves sink back to the bottom - still in a vertical position. I have no idea what they were doing. Getting air? At the larval stage they have gill structures to help them breathe underwater. Perhaps the surfacing ones had metamorphosed to the point where they'd lost their gills?

It's easy to see how the adults get their name. The one in the photo below had been run over and killed, sadly. This always strikes me as so unlucky because there isn't much traffic on the tracks in the hills, especially at night, when these salamander are more likely to be on the move.

My pool discoveries reminded me that a couple of weeks earlier, some friends and I nearly trod on a young fire salamander (tiny and totally black) in the middle of this same track. Unmoving, imitating a twig, it looked dead. Just in case it wasn't, I gently picked it up and set it down in the grass, off the track, whereupon it very slowly walked away. Let's hope it survives to adulthood.

This spring I feel I've seen fire salamanders in almost every stage of their development. I would love, one day, to see a live adult, but in the meantime shall have to return to the rock pool to monitor the youngsters' progress. Fingers crossed the water won't dry up before they can survive on land.

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Discoveries in the Undergrowth

26/3/2016

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by Lesley McLaren

At the moment, when I hear rustling in a hedgerow, more often than not it turns out to be a human, bent double, foraging for wild asparagus or other delicacies I know nothing about. I must confess I'm never tempted by those tender green tips poking through the undergrowth in verges - can't help thinking of all the animals (dogs mostly and mine in particular) that have probably left their mark in passing!

I've found one or two very different things in the last few days, however, which I won't be adding to my Easter omelette either.

I don't normally collect feathers but couldn't resist bringing this one home because it's in such pristine condition. I didn't think it was the moult season, so was surprised to come across it. At first I thought it might be a kestrel's tail feather, but it's 22cm long - which would make for a very big kestrel - and research confirms it's from a buzzard's tail. According to a wonderful new book I've just bought (The Raptors of Europe and The Middle East by Dick Forsman) resident raptors start to moult during the breeding season. There are buzzards all year round where I found this feather, and nesting begins in March - so that puts me straight; I shouldn't have been surprised at all.

On a different day, I nearly stepped on this wonderful creature.

The orange-y colouring seems unusual, but she is a common spiny toad bufo spinosus (subspecies of the common toad). I believe they can change their colour to suit surroundings and she was quite well camouflaged against the leaves - less so when she moved to a grassier area. I say 'she' but have no idea if I'm right about that. I'm going by size alone (she was a big girl) and I didn't check the length of her nasal vent, or look for "nuptial pads" on the first three fingers...

Interesting to watch the way she moved when she walked away.

Common Toad from Lesley McLaren on Vimeo.

So what is everyone else looking for and plucking out of the hedgerows? Wild garlic? There are a lot of pretty white flowers around at the moment. They must be a type of allium, but which? They don't smell of garlic and their leaves aren't broad enough for wild garlic. The flower doesn't look quite right close up either. So I'm wondering if they are allium neapolitanum - Neapolitan (False) Garlic. Can anyone tell me?

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Of Small Creatures

3/7/2014

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by Robin Noble

It is strange how you can experience a 'run' of things; you may see the same bird constantly for a few days, for instance. In my case, a few days ago, it was little creatures, which we rarely see.

In our garden we have a silly small pond; when we looked at the house before buying, it had fish in it, which we did not want. They duly went, but we still don't know what to do with it. It gets full of leaves and Saharan sand and generally looks rather unpleasant. Recently, it was drying up in the warm temperatures, and I hoped it would complete the process so that I could get into it, and give it a good clean. The recent thundery rain, however, has thwarted that hope, and it has had about half an inch of gunge in the bottom. I happened to check it one morning, and realised that sitting bolt upright in it, looking rather nervous, was a tiny mouse. I have no idea whether it had just fallen in, or had jumped in for some water, but it obviously could not get back up the sheer, slippery sides of the pool. I tried to catch it with the little net I use to retrieve leaves from the water, and eventually did so, but not before I had taken my sandals off and stood in the wet ooze! I duly tipped the wee mouse off on the bank and it disappeared into the hedge.

That one was obviously unharmed, but this morning I found another (or the same one?), who was not so lucky and had expired. They belonged clearly to the same species, and had fairly short tails. I think this must be the mouse which my invaluable "L'Albera" book names as the "souris à queue courte" or "mus spretus". I don't have a book of mammals in English, but think this is the Algerian mouse or western Mediterranean mouse. There are not many distinguishing marks - it is just small!

The evening after I rescued the first mouse, Martine happened to glance outdoors and said that there was a tiny frog sitting quietly on the tiles. So there was, and it continued to sit there peacefully while I took a few photos of it with flash. It was obviously the tiny green rainette méridionale, which lives in our hedges and makes such a noise at night. We had never seen one before, and it seemed odd that it was just there on the terrace tiles - there had been no rain, and they were bone-dry and still warm to the touch. I also wonder where these local frogs spawn; like so many other places around here, everything seems to be dry, prickly and stony!

We have, of course, got geckos, which we occasionally see catching the odd moth. For quite a lot of the year they live behind the shutters, and closing the shutters without trapping a gecko inside the house is quite an art! They always seem to slide away again some how, and don't hang around for long. They are not very colourful, but seem to be able to take on the colour of their surroundings: a few which live in the dark stone of the terrace wall, can look almost black. I assume they must be the ones the book calls:" tarente de Maurétanie"- they certainly make an attractive addition to the local fauna!

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More Activity at the Rock Pool

Stream and Pond Life in the Albères

Discoveries in the Undergrowth

Of Small Creatures

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