“When I think of vernal pools, I think of magical forests with this pool that just shows up,” says Gabby Zagorski, the monitoring lead at Halton Conservation, as she leads me down King Road the next morning. King Road, between Hamilton and Burlington, Ont., and about an hour outside of Toronto, doesn’t have any magical forests or pools as far as I can see. Just those muddy puddles I spotted last night in the rain.

Turns out, those muddy puddles are actually the vernal pools I was looking for. Also, Zagorski tells me I shouldn’t call them puddles, as it tends to diminish how cool they actually are. And while you won’t spot fairies dancing across their surfaces, there is something magical about how these temporarily flooded wetland areas pop up somewhat predictably each year to a defined rhythm based on the melt and drying after the snow.

Vernal pools stop runoff, protecting species that live in lakes and rivers nearby. If we had mud-goggles, we could stick our heads in and might see frogs, toads, other salamanders, and even other endangered species swimming around in their predator-free seasonal homes, at all stages of their lives. How cool is it that these pools have so much life in them, when they don’t exist all year round? The damp, late-winter woodlot we’re walking through starts to feel a little more special to me.

Thanks to photographer Zach Baranowski, I know now the Jefferson salamander doesn’t actually look like mud, despite its Wikipedia headshot. Captured by dedicated photographers, these salamanders are actually black or grey-brown with blue-white spots or flecks. They can grow up to 20 centimetres long, making them one of the larger salamander species in existence. They are nocturnal, and thrive on warm and rainy nights, making most of their movements during that time (hence me, out in a rainstorm, at 1 a.m.).

In Canada, they are found only in southern Ontario, where the Jefferson is listed as endangered. Recent estimates suggest its population has declined more than 90 per cent over the last 30 years. Because the Jefferson salamander is an endangered species, identified as such in Ontario in 2011, its homes and breeding grounds end up as protected lands — this means the 300-metre area around its breeding ponds can’t be touched. So, despite the encroaching nearby subdivision, the Waterdown woodlot (where I searched in vain in the middle of the night for signs of them) can’t be touched.

“Everything in a sense acts as a keystone species,” explains Zagorski when I ask why we should care about these mud-looking salamanders. “In these food webs, if you lose something, it will have an impact, especially since we don’t have a lot of these woodlots or forests left in urban areas. It’s really incredible that the Jeffersons kind of get to act as the protector.”

Because these vernal pools are often close to roadways, that 300 metres can make a huge difference to the salamanders’ survival, but some may travel more than 1,500 metres on their quest for sex — and road deaths during seasonal dispersal and introduced predatory fish at breeding sites are significant threats to the Jefferson. That’s why, in 2012, Conservation Halton asked the City of Burlington to close King Road during the weeks the salamanders are expected to breed.

Each year, the conservation group identifies the best time period to close — and they don’t always get it right.

“It’s tricky because we can only really rely on weather data,” says Zagorski. “Last year, some of the salamanders were already in the vernal pools when we started the closure.”

The conservation team has to provide the city with two weeks’ notice in order to get all their salamanders in a row, coordinating with the City of Hamilton as well as police for both regions. They also need to notify residents who use the road for their daily commute.

“It’s surprising, people are not that upset,” says Zagorski of public reaction to the road closure. “I’m sure it’s inconvenient, but there are other routes you can take into Burlington.”

In fact, it appears people are mostly excited when the road closure is announced.

“Every year, it’s a welcome sign of spring to close King Road to provide safe passage for ‘Jeff’and ‘Sally’ in their quest to find a mate,” says Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward.

On King Road, with the potential for road mortality being so high, closing the road is the only option to keep the salamanders safe when they’re on the prowl for a sexual partner — because the escarpment and woodlot mean other migration assistance methods aren’t possible. The ground is too precarious and crowded to build a bridge or tunnel, and there’s simply no space to create other natural pathways for the salamanders to take.

“We could look at fencing and eco passages,” says Zagorski. “That would be the ideal scenario because we wouldn’t have to close the road and you wouldn’t have to worry about movements at any time of the year.” The Jefferson adults have their mass mating moments in the spring, but the juveniles don’t lose their gills and leave the vernal pools until August, or even into the autumn.

“It’s not all at once or timed perfectly, it’s kind of sporadic,” says Zagorski. “But we can only do the road closure in the spring. And here, because we’re on the escarpment and the vernal pools come right up to the road, the construction would be pretty detrimental to these wetlands.”

Once the salamanders have successfully crossed King Road to find their breeding pools and done the deed, and the female Jeffersons have laid up to 300 eggs, they cross back and disappear into the forest. The eggs hatch about a month later — if they’re not eaten first.

“There is a cannibalistic nature, like turtles or frogs. If there’s a smaller one and the bigger one is hungry … why would they not?” says Zagorski. “The faster you can get bigger, the faster you can get out.”

Once out of the pools, as adults, the Jefferson salamanders live on the forest floor, thriving in mixed-forest areas or swampy spots. They often will burrow underground and live in those holes (akin to their mole designation), to spend their happy 30-plus years of life.

“The Jefferson salamander is so cool,” says Zagorski. “You get en masse emergence to get to these vernal pools, then the juveniles act like fish for a while … then they lose their gills and transition back onto land.”