Vernal Pools

Welcome to the Amphibian Crossing Brigade page! 

This Brigade was started to help the amphibians cross roads where large amounts of road kill were observed in the past related to the annual Spring migration. These groups are sometimes called "Bucket Brigades”. 

Volunteers will help the amphibians cross the road and keep count of the individuals. We will be keeping an email list of interested people, and when we think there will be a migration we will let you know and hopefully you’ll be willing to come out on a rainy night and help us, the frogs, and the salamanders. 

Get Involved

If you would like to be kept up to date on the Spring crossing dates, please send your e-mail to ibergemann@actonma.gov. This activity is coordinated with the Town of Littleton Conservation Department and Boxborough volunteers. 

We have the Amphibian Crossing Brigade Handbook 2025 which hopefully will answer most of your questions. We do want to stress that this will be an open road on a rainy night, so while kids are more than welcome, they must have their own flashlights, safety vests, and adults!

Click Here for a printable brochure about the Amphibian Crossing Brigade. 

We ask that you fill out Consent Forms for Acton, Littleton, and Boxborough and get them to us ahead of time (a scan is preferable).

Locations

Maps provided: Depot Road, Fort Pond Road, Arlington Street, and Oak Hill Road

Data & Collection

For tracking, we like to have a count of how many amphibians and which species are found both alive and dead!

Here is a Data Sheet, which might be hard to handle in the rain, so you can also make up your own way of keeping count. The sites (at least for now) can just be called Fort Pond Road, Arlington Street, Depot Road, and Oak Hill Road. Report your counts back to me so I can keep track. BUT, especially along Fort Pond Road, if you find salamanders let me know approximately where you found them (ie near a certain mailbox, ATT easement, Sarah Indian Way...)

Once our Spring time work is done and we have your counts, we will be reporting them all together to sites such as this https://www.linkinglandscapes.info/amphibian-roadway-crossings.html & https://www.mass.gov/info-details/heritage-hub-overview#report-observations-

Guides to Identifying Amphibians

Here are some identification sheets. We will mostly be seeing wood frogs, spring peepers and hopefully spotted salamanders. A Jefferson or blue-spotted salamander would be a huge bonus!

Click Here for a pocket-sized guide you can print out and staple together! 

Here is a Data Sheet, which might be hard to handle in the rain, so you can also make up your own way of keeping count. The sites (at least for now) can just be called Fort Pond Road, Arlington Street and Depot Road. Report your counts back to me so I can keep track. BUT, especially along Fort Pond Road, if you find salamanders let me know approximately where you found them (ie near a certain mailbox, ATT easement, Sarah Indian Way...)

Additional Resources

For more info on vernal pools in general, try the Vernal Pool Association as a start. Mass Audubon also has a lot of info, including the sounds of wood frogs chorusing (quacking!). MACC also has this Vernal Pool slide show that is very good. 

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Annual Amphibian Brigade Reports:

2019: On March 29th we had 12 people on Fort Pond Road in Acton and Littleton and we moved 254 frogs and salamanders! On March 31 we had 16 people and we moved 151 frogs and salamanders. Great effort!

2020: Much earlier this year, with many scattered nights. Our two busiest nights were March 3 and March 10. This season volunteers crossed a total of 335 frogs and salamanders. Three vernal pools on the Sarah Doublet property were certified. 

2021: From March 18 to March 28 we crossed 219 wood frogs, 92 spring peppers, 16 spotted salamanders and 2 Jefferson complex salamanders along Fort Pond Road. It was a tough year with little rain despite warm weather so there may have been many more crossings. People expanded  to Arlington Street in Acton which has a pretty high kill rate with over 50 frogs crossed; and to Depot Road in Boxborough with 23 wood frogs and 1 spotted salamander reported.

2022: From March 7 to March 24 we safely crossed 180 live wood frogs (counted 38 dead), 114 live spring peepers (counted 18 dead), 13 spotted salamanders (counted 1 dead), 4 Jefferson-complex salamanders (counted 1 dead) and 2 red-backed salamanders (counted 1 dead) along Fort Pond Road. Arlington Street volunteers crossed 18 wood frogs (counted 51 dead), 13 spring peepers (counted 4 dead), 10 spotted salamanders (counted another 10 dead), 3 red-backed salamanders and 10 four-toed salamanders. Depot Rd/Boxborough had a tough year with volunteers but crossed 2 wood frogs (counted 12 dead), 42 spring peepers, a spotted salamander (1 dead) and 2 dead red-backed salamanders. That’s over 400 live frogs and salamanders helped across the roads - great work! Sadly we counted over 150 dead; so there's always room for more saves next year! 

2023: Our Fifth Annual Crossing Brigade Program in cooperation with the Town of Littleton had volunteers going out to help from March 22 to March 30. Please see this WBZNewsRadio report.
Fort Pond (Acton/Littleton) had 127 wood frogs (plus 17 dead), 189 peepers (plus 55 dead), 23 unidentified dead frogs, 20 spotted salamanders including one with an injured tail (plus 3 dead), 7 Jefferson/blue spotted complex (plus 1 dead) and 1 red-backed salamander.
Arlington (Acton) crossed 1 wood frog, 4 peepers and 1 spotted and had 6 unidentified dead frog and 1 dead spotted.
Depot Road (Boxborough) crossed 29 wood frogs, 24 peepers and one spotted plus about 20 unidentified dead frogs.
Oak Hill (Littleton), new this year, crossed 11 wood frogs, 33 peepers, 13 spotted and one Jefferson, but the big story is they have had well over 200 dead frogs and 30 dead spotted.

2024: Very early start this year on February 28th, and I feel like we may have missed some. Almost 200 frogs and salamanders were moved that night along Fort Pond Road (Littleton and Acton), Depot Road (Boxborough) and Oak Hill (Acton). Our last night was March 6th. Over the season I think about 35 people moved close to 1,000 animals, which is amazing. Most of what was moved over that period was:

378 wood frogs, 456 peepers, 6 tree frogs, 75 spotted salamanders, 4 jefferson/blue complex salamanders, 10 red-backed salamanders, and no four-toed salamanders.

The counts of dead animals weren’t too well tracked, but it was over 400 frogs and salamanders.