Enjoying some time on the trails and ran across this porcupine enjoying the warm weather and nice breeze.

First day our daffodils opened!  I've been watching them all week and thought they might open yesterday, but today was the day.  Along with the peepers, this proves to me that spring is really here*.

*even if it snows later

Here are a few photos that were recently posted on NUN's instagram and facebook to highlight Big Night for New York's Herps!

Click through to learn more!

The day was rainy, cloudy and overcast, and around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The time of day was around 2:00, and I was herping with my Herpetology class for lab on the Kip Tract trail by St. Lawrence University. This Lead-Back was under a soft, rotting log that I had overturned.

The SLU Herpetology class spent a rainy lab period flipping over logs in search of salamanders. I finallly found this eastern red-back (Plethodon cinereus) under one of the last logs I flipped -- a small moss-covered one beside a small, half-frozen vernal pool, in a stand of white cedar and eastern hemlock.

During Herpetology we went looking for various herps. After a long lab period in the rain, I finally found a leadback salamander (Eastern Redback without the red stripe) under a log off the Kip Trail.

For an ecology class, my group is looking at the role of seed-predation in relation to distance to water.  We are doing our project on St. Lawrence University's artificial wetland and Saturday was a really perfect end to day.  We didn't find a difference between the seeds that were closer to the water being eaten or the ones further away for this particular day!  Added some photos to show how nice a day this really was, especially with the river no longer being flooded from all of the recent rain.

During the Herpetology class's lab period, I spotted two-redbacked salamanders under the same log, one red-backed salamander 5 m from those two, one leadback salamander under a different log, and one red spotted newt under a log.  The class collectively heard spring peepers and caught this wood frog in a minnow trap! This all occurred between 1-4 on a rainy and relatively cold, spring day and all herps were found along the Kip Trail near St. Lawrence University.  Here are some photos to help!

On the search for signs of spring, I stopped in the rain to get a closer look at this lovely pussy willow (Salix discolor) flowering outside Johnson Hall of Science at St. Lawrence University. The fussy flowers are called catkins, and appear on many species in the trees in the birch (Betulaceae) and willow (Salicaceae) families. 

I went on a walk down by the Little River and heard lots of wood frogs and spring peepers. I saw many of the wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) in a marshy area, and I tried to follow the sound of a few peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) but sadly never set eyes on any.