Here you see a local vernal pool becoming surrealistic in Thursday’s sunlight. This image can give you an idea of the wonderfully rich textures of the pool’s watery reflections and lacework of now-bare branches, which seem to create the pool’s own, mysterious dimension.
However, no one can appreciate (or maybe even imagine) the experience of actually being at this vernal pool by looking at a photograph.
To “know” this pool, I think that you not only need to see it, but at the same time you need to smell its earthy-resinous scent and hear the harsh creaking of hundreds of the pool’s little wood frog residents (Lithobates sylvaticus). That amphibious chorus alone is unique; it sounds like a wagon train of axles that are in serious need of lubrication.
By the way, that loud frog fugue turns to total and profound (if not creepy) silence when you get within 20 feet of the pool, where you’ll sense (but not see) all those beady eyes focusing fearfully on you. Here’s another view:
As you probably know, “vernal” (i.e., “spring”) pools are shallow, usually woodland depressions that often contain water only seasonally. Among other things, they’re essential breeding grounds for certain wildlife that, in turn, are important foods for other wildlife.
In Maine, species that must have access to vernal pools in order to survive and reproduce include wood frogs, spotted and blue-spotted salamanders, and fairy shrimp, according to State wildlife officials. Avoiding impacts to significant vernal pools and their surrounding habitat is important because many amphibian species must return to the pool in which they were born to breed; they are “pool-specific” species.
(Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on April 13, 2023.)