Ten days ago, I moved an item from my bucket list to my treasured memory list. In a cold rain in the pitch-dark of nearly-bedtime on a boardwalk over a tiny patch of bald cypress swamp with a red light flashlight I met my very first in-the-wild spotted salamanders.
These were salamanders returning, as all salamanders do, to the vernal pool where they were born. As adults, they live in burrows in the nearby woods.
Salamanders respond to soil temperature to let them know when it’s time to crawl out of their burrows in the forest and return home to mate.
A female salamander can store packets of spermatophore inside her body for years as insurance for the continuation of the species.
If a vernal pool is drying up too fast, a young salamander tadpole can speed up development so that they can reach adulthood — albeit smaller than usual — before the pool is gone.
Salamanders can live twenty years in the wild.
Their mechanisms for survival are so very elegant and woven so perfectly with their corner of the natural world. Which is a sentence that can be written about every species of living thing on this planet.
Except one.
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Fascinating read, you really captured my attention and drew me in, I was there with you at that vernal pool, thanks!
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I had NO IDEA if the longevity of salamanders. Thanks for sharing
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I have hunted for spotted salamanders on the move and never found one–you’re inspiring me to hunt again!
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We saw them at a special program put on by Dawes Arboretum near Columbus. Oh, would I ever love to know some woods well enough to know where to find vernal pools and see them there. Have you read BRAIDING SWEETGRASS? The chapter “Collateral Damage” is beautiful and heart-breaking.
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I read it when it first came out. And my memory is lousy enough that I don’t remember the chapter specifically, but I do remember the book as you describe it–beautiful and heart-breaking.
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I love learning something new. And I envy your retirement. You are making what you want it to be! Are you calling out humans at the end? In my own little corner I am doing what I can, but the powers that be are making me squirm. What are we doing to our lovely earthly home?
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I am ABSOLUTELY calling out humans at the end. Our destruction of this planet is beyond heart-breaking. Yes, we do what we can in our little corners, but the big picture is horrifying.
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Oof! That ending packed a wallop, especially coming after all of the intricate, amazing and wondrous details you shared about salamanders.
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I was digging in the dirt around the maple tree on my RV site in Bangor, Maine, one day last summer and accidentally uncovered a spotted salamander. It was my first encounter with this creature.. Thank God I did no harm. and research confirmed identification of this special creature. Your writing kindled memories of that wonderful experience. and I devoured the facts you shared about them.
Your sentence “Ten days ago I moved an item from my bucket list to my treasured memory list” touched me deeply. After months of missteps, yesterday morning I experienced my first guided workshop about “slow birding”. Essentially, this is a form of bird watching that involves sitting in one spot and simply enjoying the birds and other creatures that enter your field of vision. The experience was magical, one I intend to repeat often . . . definitely an item moved from my bucket list to my treasured memory list. Your words are perfect.
Finally . . . “Except one”. I am a widow 78 years old and each day I feel as if I understand less and less in communication. But in those two wordsyour communication with me was crystal clear. Before reading the question and your answer in the comments I thought to myself “I don’t care if this is what she means to say, I know what I THINK. And, sadly, I do agree with you completely.
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