The pools may be in wooded areas, open fields, or even in suburban neighborhoods. He says amphibians prefer vernal pools to other bodies of water, where fish might get in their way. Wood frogs, the most cold-adapted amphibian of North America, will follow many of the same migration routes to the same pools. Once breeding begins, some vernal pools will host a few dozen to several hundred salamanders, and handfuls to many thousand wood frogs. Large pools might contain 5,000 salamanders and hundreds of thousands of frogs.
Males tend to migrate first, with females following.
Jackson cautions homeowners with vernal pools in their yards to keep the areas as natural as possible. As for watching or even catching the animals, Jackson encourages it. They'll do alright for a few days inside a house or classroom as long as they don't get too hot, but then they should be returned to the pool. According to today's weather forecasts, conditions expected Thursday night, March 16, could be favorable for migrations in the Connecticut Valley of western Massachusetts, eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hamsphire, Connecticut and Rhode Island. In general, migrations in the Berkshire Hills, and southern Vermont occur later than the above-mentioned areas.