Newt Follies: The Locomotion / Buffet Ballet

It was a strange day with bizarre weather. We had rain. We had bright warm sunshine. We had horrible winds. And then we had impressive storms. Followed by more horrible winds. Wow! Our power flickered a bunch of times but came back up each time it went out. Hooray for us; not everyone else was so lucky.

But just after the rain, and as the bright sunshine took over, I headed over to visit the Barrens, including the first three ponds. And on this day, while I heard and saw frogs a-plenty, it was the newts who stole the show.

It was newt follies everywhere you looked! The scene above is from my favorite pond, which is to say the first pond. I spotted a frog sort of floating on top of the water surface. Then I noted that it was moving. Or being moved, somehow.

I saw motion behind and beneath the frog, lots of squirming down there, and I thought at first that it was a second frog. Doing, well, you know. What comes naturally, in springtime, between two frogs on a vernal pond. Rites of spring and all.

The frog itself was not moving. It was being pushed by a second creature, which, as it turns out, was a newt. At first, I thought the frog was dead and the newt was trying to eat it. But then I observed motion in each creature. Frog and newt are apparently VERY good friends, and possibly much, much more.

It felt like I was at the Briarwood Bash, you know, back in the old days, when everybody was stone drunk and humping everyone else. I didn't know whether to ask them to get a room, look away to give them some privacy, or offer each one a cigarette! 

But of course, it COULD NOT have been what I thought it was. Now, my friend Stan says he once observed a newt eating tiny leeches off a frog's back. Which is, I have to say, a VERY personal service.

And I have yet an alternative theory. This pond offers free newt taxi service that is available to get any frog who is interested (or perhaps exhausted) to the other end of the pond, with very little effort!  How convenient! We'll call it: The Locomotion! Ahem!

In other news, in the third pond, there were huge masses of eggs, and many hungry newts. I spotted a newt that was a whip of muscle. Just gorgeous to look at. And strong and fierce and amazing, doing almost what seemed like a ballet of celebration over those eggs. An embarrassment of riches.

It looked to me like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.* In the extras, you may see the amazing newt and its feast of spotted salamander egg masses in yet another vernal pond in the Scotia Barrens. Spring is happening out there! Get thee to a vernal pond! Don't miss the SHOW!!!

It is my custom to include a song for each photo. And I'll bet you know what's coming! My first song, for the frog relaxing on the surface, and the helpful newt providing free taxi service across the pond, we have Kylie Minogue, with The Locomotion. For the Creature from the Black Lagoon and its feast, here's Queen, with I Want It All!

*Bonus useless movie-related tidbit: Back in the very early days that we were together, and before we were married, my husband and I visited Wakulla Springs in northern Florida, which is where all of the underwater scenes were filmed for The Creature From the Black Lagoon. My husband actually swam. I myself wussed out and did not swim, but only waded in the shallowest part, because of a) the huge dead alligator displayed in the nearby hotel/resort lobby that had once lived in the spring, and b) the tall, dark vegetation in the water, sort of like seaweed, that made it impossible to see anything that might be coming to eat you!