Peter and I went out the night before last and he taught me how to find peepers:  just look on low branches, logs, and plants for little frogs with close-set eyes.  It’s quite hard to locate them from the sound of their singing.  Peepers are less shy than salamanders, and even tolerated Peter getting within a few inches to snap this picture.  We both remarked on how few salamander egg clusters there are this year.  Our suspicion is that the weird weather has delayed the arrival of females to pick up the spermatophores left last week by their males.  In support of that theory, last night I found a nice cluster of fresh eggs (and one maybe older one.)  They were in a very small pool in the woods that I rarely visit.  I also put a nice new article on vernal pools and salamanders by Peter (check the Vernal Pools page under the tab for Land, Plants, and Animals page) and a map of all our pools with numbers in the same place, so when we talk of them we’ll know what we mean. (Eggs are in pool #9.)