Henslow's Sparrow and the Search for the Green Salamander

As we drove down 33 towards our impact site, Marcel’s phone was buzzing, continuously overlapping the GPS directions with updates and messages.  A typical field season morning.  One of the messages was from an enthusiastic Dr. Popescu, telling us that his former PhD Adviser, Mac Hunter, would be in town and wanted to see some of our turtles.  We agreed on a date to show off our animals and newly developed telemetry skills, and a week later headed over to OU’s Life Sciences Building to introduce ourselves.

Front to back: Aram Calhoun, Viorel Popescu, Mac Hunter

Mac walked up to me and shook my hand.  He was a tall man, well over six feet, with a lined, rough face.  He reminded me of a mountain, wise, quiet, and perpetually watching the world.  His wife, Aram Calhoun, on the other hand was petite, little more than five feet tall with a contagious enthusiasm.  It struck me that these two had seen the world.  They weren't just travelers, they had studied, examined, and pondered everything they had come across.  Even after years of field work, wildlife was still what fueled them.  They hadn't lost their energy and excitement for the new and unexpected.  They hopped from country to country, and continent to continent seeking out that illusive lifer, or that pesky nemesis.  

A blue grosbeak surveys the fields below.

While traveling the globe in search of every bird family on earth, Mac and Aram had stopped in Athens to see Dr. Popescu and his new lab.  Of the give-or-take 200 bird families, they only had one more to see: a family of creepers in the Philippines.  On their birding extravaganza, they were also recording and identifying everything else they could find—families and species of mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, trees, ferns, etc.  They were the kind of scientists who had done it all and seen it all.

After a successful day showing off our turtles, they invited me to come along birding and herping with them the following morning.  I eagerly accepted.  On their target list was the rare Henslow’s sparrow and the state endangered green salamander.  I had never seen either of these species, and was ecstatic at the chance to accompany their search.  

Dr. Popescu picked me up around 6:30 a.m. the following morning, and the four of us drove to Anderson Meadows where the Henslow’s sparrow had recently been reported.  Our van rattled down an old gravel road which opened up into a vast grassland.  As I stepped out of the car, Aram pointed out the call of a bobwhite quail.  I listened as a whistling bob-white, bob-white sounded from the tall grass not far from where we stood.  Dr. Popescu and I exchanged thrilled looks—neither of us had heard the call of a bobwhite before.  It was going to be a good day.

Mac and Aram had brought along a recording of the Henslow’s song to try to entice the bird to fly in.  “The field guides describe it as an unremarkable, two-syllable song,” Aram explained.  Unremarkable was an understatement.  The call was a quiet tsi-lik, lasting little more than a second.  If a bird was singing, identifying the call wasn't the problem, hearing it over the wind and other song birds was.

As we walked down the path, scanning with our eyes and straining our ears, we heard that quiet call, tsi-lik.  Then we heard another, to our right this time. Tsi-lik.  And another.  Tsi-lik.  The birds were all around us.  Binoculars and cameras flew to our eyes as we scanned the grass, searching for movement.  Suddenly, a small, brown bird whizzed over the field and perched on a low shrub.  It was a sparrow, but was it the Henslow’s?  The bird threw back its head and instead of singing tsi-lik, gave a long, insect-like buzz.  “A grasshopper sparrow,” Aram IDed, “also an unusual field species.”  It wasn't our Henslow’s, but it was still a treat.

The rare Henslow's sparrow perches at the tip of a branch.

Our little menagerie of birders finally decided to hike into the field from which the birds were calling.  It was our best chance of seeing a Henslow’s sparrow close enough to identify.  We would have to be slow and silent, and hope that the sparrow would fly to a perch and call.  Grassland birds are much more inclined to run through the brush than fly. 

We fanned out to cover more ground.  I made it within several feet of the calling birds but couldn't get a clear look at them.  After seeing a few fly in the distance, Mac and Aram decided they would mark the Henslow’s sparrow BVD—better view desired.  Then, as we were heading back out to the trail, a Henslow’s sparrow flew right in front of us and perched 20 feet away on a shrub.  We all gasped; it was a fantastic look.  The sparrow even allowed us to edge closer, within 10 feet or so.

With a rare lifer bird to start the morning, we were confident in our prospects of finding a green salamander.  An hour later, we arrived at our destination.  The weather was cool, cloudy, and humid.  If ever there was a day for salamanders, it was today.  

Green salamanders are limited to a few counties in extreme southern Ohio.  These secretive amphibians live in the crevices of limestone and sandstone cliffs.  Their pattern of green flecking allows them to merge perfectly with the green lichens that cover their abode.  During the day, green salamanders remain hidden, tucked away in narrow, moist cracks in the stone’s face.  By night they venture out to hunt for insects and other invertebrates.  

An American toad wedged within the rocks.

As we hiked through the trees, we were quickly confronted by an enormous looming wall of brittle sandstone.  The stone’s surface was pockmarked with holes and crevices, plenty of places for a salamander to hide.  Our team split the rock-face into sections for each of us to search.  Flashlights and phones illuminated the cliff as we peered into crevice after crevice, each time hoping for a little, green face to be looking back at us.

“This is what diving is like, looking in all these rock crevices,” Aram told me.  We searched the cliffs as thoroughly as any herpetologist could.  On two occasions we thought we had found our green salamander, only to realize it was lichen or rocks under closer inspection.  We found other amphibians, an american toad and a pickerel frog, wedged within the stones.  But in the end, we came up empty.  

A pickerel frog lurks under a ledge in the rock-face.

“It might just be too dry,” Dr. Popescu suggested.  It had been a warm week, and there hadn't been any rain.  The salamanders had likely worked their way deeper into the porous rocks in search of moisture.  It was disappointing not to see the green salamander, but two rare lifers in one day was a tall order to fill.  I knew the location and the habitat; I’d be back when conditions were more favorable.

Spending the day with such seasoned nature veterans was a dream come true.  I had learned so much just listening to Mac and Aram’s stories.  The world beyond Ohio felt much more real—a place I could actually visit and explore one day.