Salamander survey and recreation

Well, Saturday it rained ALL day, so it was wet enough to do a night search for salamanders and do a frog call survey. We left the house about 8:30pm and completed 4- 20 minute searches in 4 different cover types. We ended up finding 6 salamanders, which is great! They were weighed, measured, and promptly released. When it's raining or very wet out at night, salamanders that normally burrow into leaf litter or underground come out to feed. It's pretty neat that they are just out walking around! Salamander searching is certainly different from our early birding mornings, stumbling around in the woods in the dark, but it's certainly something different to do. We worked until about midnight Saturday, so we were down for the count Sunday morning and decided to hold off on continuing bird surveys until today.

In recreational news, today we visited High Knob Recreational Area in the Jefferson National Forest, and Flag Rock Park in Norton. Both of these places are probably only about 20 minutes away from Wise. High Knob was really neat- there was a high elevation natural lake that was open to swimming, but minimally impacted by people. We were the only ones there, so it was nice and quiet. We saw newts, fish, and even a couple of water snakes (not close by though, no worries)! We also took a 1 mile hike up to the observation tower (supposedly you can see 5 states from up there- VA, KY, TN, NC, and WV) only to find out that the observation tower burnt down awhile back and is no longer there! It was still a really nice hike though.

Flag Rock is a rocky overlook above the City of Norton (not really a city, in my opinion). An American flag is flying from a rock over the city. You can see for miles around from here, it was amazing! The streets of Norton used to spell out the city's name. It's hard to see in pictures, but you can sort of make it out!

Here are some pictures, enjoy!

Longtail salamander, Eurycea longicauda, captured and successfully released during sampling.

High Knob Lake

Flag Rock Viewing area, overlooking Norton, Va

Flag Rock

Can you see that the streets spell "NORTON?" Yeah, use your imagination!