Panning for Gold in Wormtown 11-17-2013

So, yeah... we went to Cascading Waters in Worcester this past summer on a 90°+ day and enjoyed dipping ourselves into the water, finding 2-Lines and Duskies! The whole year, we thought the habitat looked great for Spring Salamanders, too. So, with no other herp excitement to look forward to, we headed out to Cascades, to seek our Springy friends!

Well, the cascading waters looked to be dry. But upon stepping in and flipping some rocks, we saw that the water was indeed there, under the rocks... which were under a layer of leaves. The small pools looked PERFECT for Springs. But we didn't find any.

In fact, we didn't see anything until about 15 minutes in, I finally got a skinny little Two-Lined!


It was tougher than we had imagined. We flipped hundreds of rocks, but there were thousands and thousands. I said that whoever flipped the first Duskie got lunch bought for them. (If we saw none, Dutch treat.)

I flipped and saw some tiny grey larvae swimming away. After a long pursuit, I got one into the observation tank. It was a Two-Lined larvae.


Every once in a while, the water would pool.


Andrea earned herself a lunch when she flipped this beauty!


The only Dookie of the day... it got her a nice cheezy pizza!

In fact, it was the only non-Two-Lined of the day! Here are some more that we found in the first .1 mile of the excursion...




We decided to ascend the mountain, if only to see what was up there. Our only other time here was shortened by the heat and we didn't get much chance to explore. I had to sit my achey carcass down for a spell first...

To the left of the picture (my right) is all cascading water... low and covered with leaves, but all potential Spring habitat.

We got way up there and took a trail off of the main one and found ourselves at another beautiful, watery, muddy area. I flipped a stepping stone and this Two-Lined was under there... Stubby Malone!


Here are our other high-altitude Two-Lines!



We saw plenty more, but they're squirmy little devils!!

We also saw lots of these under rocks...

Anyone know what they are?

So, it started to rain, so we slowly went down the leafy, rocky path. We managed to make it with no injuries! Andrea still looked beautiful, in fact!


So, it was a quick hike, but we both flipped our backs into pain. Just 2 1/2 hours or so. Andrea's well-earned Dookie Pizza sure tasted good on the way home, too!