The Outside Story: Vernal pools

The Outside Story: Vernal pools

When winter snow melts and spring rain begins, vernal pools appear on the landscape. These ephemeral wetlands form in depressions in forests or ridgelines and offer essential breeding habitat to amphibians and invertebrates, including wood frogs, spotted salamanders and fairy…

Vernal Pool Walk at Freedom Forest Preserve

Join the Sebasticook Regional Land Trust and Maine Master Naturalists Mary Ellen Dennis and Cyrene Slegona Saturday, April 26, to explore the beautiful series of vernal pools at Freedom Forest Preserve, one of our Forever Wild Preserves. Look for egg masses and larvae of the spotted salamander and wood frog — vernal-pool dependent amphibians that migrate during rainy nights in early spring to breed in these temporary but highly significant wetla…