Newt-Fest / Creatures from the Black Lagoon!

My husband and I spent our second backpack of the year in Sproul State Forest, at a campsite we like to call Pine Glen. The high temp the first day was 53 degrees F. Our overnight low was 30. We had blue skies and sunshine, and a great moon show, with an occasional breeze that picked up some on Tuesday morning. It was delightful weather for being out in the deep woods.

We spent a happy morning in our campsite, and by lunchtime, we were packed up and ready to walk over to a little vernal pond that we know nearby. We expected, with the recent rains, that it would be full to overflowing. And there was indeed water, lots of it.

The sunny end of the pond was populated with newts galore, and I got down at water level with my camera, moved slowly and quietly, and photographed the newts in their main habitat, which is to say, in a vernal pond in springtime, doing what comes naturally.

The photo above shows the pile of newts I first encountered, before they all crawled off each other and back into the water. It looked like a great big puppy pile, but . . . of newts. I imagine that there had been some shenanigans going on there, but when I showed up, it was like I was 5-0*. Everybody, run! Back into the water they went.

I spied plenty of newts swimming around in the water, and they seemed fast and strong, like little whips of muscle. A newt is about three inches long, in case you've never seen one, so these are little guys, for sure, but full of pep!

The photo I took that appears in the extras reminded me of the movie Creature from the Black Lagoon, a family favorite. Many years ago, my husband and I visited Wakulla Springs in northern Florida, where the movie was filmed. The water at Wakulla was spooky, full of tall, waving, green things. 

The 20-plus-foot alligator (a real one, but long dead and stuffed) in a glass case in the nearby hotel lobby didn't reassure me at all, and I ended up chickening out, wading in a foot or so of water near the shore, while my husband actually went snorkeling in those dark, scary waters.

These waters were NOTHING like that, I am happy to report. They were shallow, and clear, and green. And in my photo in the extras, you may see two newts enjoying some afternoon romance, with a rather large tadpole (not unlike a mini Dr. Ruth) inspecting the proceedings closely to make sure they're doing it right! Ahem!

From the pond, we walked back to our campsite, and from there to our car. A red admiral butterfly - maybe the same one that welcomed me the day before - flittered around a nearby puddle, but was too fast for the camera. 

We put our gear in the car, grabbed a drink, and hopped in the car ourselves and headed for home. We had two really good days in the woods. And so concludes the second successful backpack of the season!

I've got two pictures of some rather *ahem!* friendly newts. So let's have two soundtrack songs. Let's see. . . . First is George Harrison, with Got My Mind Set on You. Second is the Who, with Join Together.

*“5-0” (pronounced five-oh) became a popular nickname for cops after the TV show Hawaii Five-O, which aired from 1968 to 1980.