I hope my regular Travel Tuesday readers don't mind one more day of diversion... I just have to post about something that's happening right now. If you live in Southeastern Massachusetts or on Cape Cod, try to get to a herring run. I've been watching this annually since I was a kid. It's still quite amazing!
Take a look. Can you see how the water is "boiling" with herring (fish that are also called alewives)? Look at those fins sticking up!
They're all swimming upstream, against the river, to reproduce!
Here's the river. Instead of going up that waterfall, they'll go up the man-made fish ladder that starts on the left side of the picture.
Here's the ladder. It gradually rises to water level on the other side of the road the river passes beneath.
These fish successfully made it over this step. It's not unusual, however, to see fish fall back as they get tired from swimming so hard.
Once they get over a step, they can rest a bit on the edges of the ladder where the water doesn't flow as fast.
Here's a video I shot yesterday. It's a bit hard to see, but you can get a feel for how many fish are there.
I sure am glad that traveling isn't as hard for me as it is for these fish!
Have you noticed any new animals migrating in your area? Many songbirds have appeared in our area over the last few weeks. How about you?
Today, I diverge from my usual kind of travel post, mostly because "traveling" (as in migrating) wood frogs are so cool, I want to tell you more about them!
Yesterday morning I asked my friend to go out on a photo shoot with me. After seeing wood frogs last Thursday, I hoped to see even more. It got cold again over the weekend, so they wouldn't have been out. Yesterday, however, was 70 degrees. Perfect weather for wood frogs.
When we met at the pond at 11:05, there wasn't much happening. We decided to work our way around to the back side where there tends to be more action. After a bit of scouting, we ended up on a bank where the earth slopes gently into the pond.
We both settled in on our stomachs facing the water hoping some frogs would reveal themselves. Finally, perhaps 25 minutes after we first arrived, frogs started to surface.
After a few minutes, I heard a small animal in the brush over my left shoulder. We joked that it was getting closer. Then I heard it behind me. I assumed it was a bird that was flitting around. But then, the sound was coming from several places at the same time. My friend kept shooting, but my curiosity got the best of me. What was making that noise?
As I sat up and turned to look, I saw bunches of frogs hopping to the water, looking slightly out of control, like they might crash at any time. I laughed out loud and told my friend what it was.
They continued to hop down the hillside for several more hours. Two hours after they really started migrating, literally hundreds were in the water.
The hopping frenzy continued. One landed on my friend's leg.
Then on a camera bag. One hopped into my back then let me gently pick it up before it hopped into the water. The two of us just kept laughing at the sight. I've witnessed this before, so you'd think I'd be a bit jaded, but it's still exciting.
We spent nearly 3 hours out there. Then, I went back to get my kids from school and brought them out. By 4 pm, very few frogs were still hopping out of the woods but we did see a few. We saw more frogs in the water mating by this time, though.
And what did my kids do? Climb out on the same trees I was on earlier in the day. At least they come by it honestly!
Have you ever seen wood frogs migrate? How about spotted salamanders? Or is there an animal native to your area that migrates that you'd like to tell us about?
