What I Saw at the Blue-Spotted Salamander Migration

Marquette — Every spring Peter White Drive in Presque Isle Park is closed to all traffic. From 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. the gates are shut. People in raincoats and orange vests gather, flashlights ablaze. This little strip of road is closed to automobiles, but open for foot traffic—from both humans and salamanders alike.

When the snow starts to melt and the rain starts to come, the blue-spotted salamanders of Presque Isle Park slowly emerge from their subterranean homes. Every year thousands of slithery amphibians trek across the still-crunchy snow, down onto the soggy grass, and march bravely across the pavement of Peter White Drive to reach their annual vernal pools for breeding on the other side of the road.

Though Peter White Drive is closed for a full 8 weeks, the ideal weather conditions for the annual migration are rather specific. All days are not created equal for salamanders. This makes planning a trip to see those little crawlers quite difficult. The blue-spotted salamanders don’t conform to our Google Calendar.

First, they migrate at night. Second, the weather has to be above freezing—the 40s are ideal. Third, it can’t be too hot. Fourth, it can’t be too dry. They don’t like that either. The most ideal conditions for migration are cool wet nights with peak movement occurring between the hours of 10 and 11 p.m.

Planning the trip to Marquette to catch the nocturnal migration in action was like trying to predict which way the stock market might turn while hopping on one foot and juggling. Checking multiple weather apps, trying to hedge against the fact that Michigan weather always changes when you don’t want it to, searching local trail cams for any insight into remaining snow, and driving three and a half hours north and through the U.P. hoping that we might actually get lucky and catch them on their night-time journey.

We got to Presque Isle Park right around 9:30 p.m. on April 12. It had rained earlier, it was about 48 degrees, and there was a thick fog covering the woods. There were cars idling in the parking lot. Groups of college students, families, and couples got out, grabbed their flashlights and sloshed across the wet grass, past the barricade, and onto Peter White Drive.

Very slowly and very very carefully we walked down the closed road with our flashlights methodically scanning the pavement like soldiers in the sentry on a northern front. Back and forth. Back and forth. The flashlights shined. And then, all of a sudden, we saw something that looked like a wet stick in the middle of the road. But it was moving; it was slow, but it was moving! A blue-spotted salamander en route to the pools.

We carefully approached, we stopped, and when we stopped the salamander stopped. We all gathered around to shine our lights and see the baby blue spots on the back, the wet toes, and the tiny eyes. A family with a couple young kids came over and looked, amazed. The kids said they were on a salamander hunt. The parents told them to be careful.

And so we continued on down Peter White Drive, and we saw more salamanders, and we stopped and shined our lights, and parents told kids to be careful, and they were indeed very careful. We saw salamanders on the pavement, salamanders on the grass, salamanders marching through puddles, and salamanders clinging to the side of snow banks ready to take the leap into the great unknown (the wet grass next to the road). Watching one finally make it across the pavement and crawl onto the dirt felt like watching a triumph, and I was happy for them.

Some were very knowledgable about the blue-spotted salamanders, conducting what seemed to be impromptu biology classes while hovering over one of the dark amphibians inching across the road. Some were obviously seeing them for the very first time. Others measured the salamanders with rulers for scientific research. No one used flash photography as it can disrupt them on their migration and everyone who used flashlights only shined them briefly in their direction, letting them go on their way undisturbed.

There were so many salamanders crossing Peter White Drive that night that walking slowed to a snail’s pace. It was genuinely nerve-wracking making our way back to the car. A blue-spotted salamander is only about 3-5 inches long, and on a wet night in the dark they aren’t easy to see. Everyone warned everyone else. “Watch out there’s one over here.” “Be careful, there are a few over there.” “Watch out, dad!” None of us wanted to accidentally hurt one of these little wet creatures, and thankfully none of us did.

I thought that it would only be us there Sunday night. I didn’t plan on a full parking lot at 10 p.m. on a cold, damp Sunday. Who would? Most of us don’t love cold wet nights quite as much as the blue-spotted salamanders do. And there was something amazing in that full parking lot and the groups of people out with their flashlights hoping to see salamanders in the dark. Or perhaps inspiring. Or maybe something else: a strange combination of fun, surprising, inspiring, wholesome, amazing, inquisitive, and simply natural.

There are few pure things anymore. We have conquered much of the environment. Previously inhuman feats have become mundane to us. And perhaps that’s the beauty of the migration. Or at least that’s what speaks to me, and I suspect I’m not alone. I am struck in a deep way by the beauty of the migrating geese every autumn and I was struck by the salamanders on Sunday night.

It’s because it’s pure. They are doing exactly what they were created to do when they were created to do it. They did it before we were here and will do it after we are gone. In a world where our petty worries and concerns convince us that we matter to everyone, the fact that we don’t matter to the salamanders is strangely beautiful and even comforting in some odd way.

The blue-spotted salamanders don’t know us and they don’t care to. They are on their way to continue their species at the vernal pools beyond Peter White Drive. We are just here to watch.