The Amaris Elliott-Engel / The Citizen

STERLING - "How many of you can walk on water?" asked Jim D'Angelo, director of the Sterling Nature Center, to a group of nine, hunting for creatures that live in the forest pools created by winter's thaws and spring's showers.

Oswego couple Jenni and Dan Mayernik showed Saturday they couldn't walk on water as they sank into the decomposing muck of the seasonal wetland. With calf-high rubber boots, the Mayerniks came prepared to trudge through a vernal pool filled with decaying leaves, dead frogs and other moribund natural material.

They bent low over the shallow, still pool, seeking to find the wood frogs and spotted salamanders who mate and breed in the vernal pools each April. With yogurt cups in hand, they scooped up their insect finds from the dark water.

One of their captures, a spindly water spider, proved that it could walk on water in a plastic tub filled up with the group's insect finds.

Of the sought-after amphibian inhabitants, the group found only one green frog.

The amphibians were either inactive with Saturday's cooler weather or had moved on from their brief breeding time in the pool, D'Angelo said.

Unlike spring in townships where green grass and planted daffodils indicate the arrival of the season, Sterling's spring means the blooming of white trilliums still unstreaked with color and wild leaks releasing a strong onion smell when crushed under feet.

Spring also means the thawing of wood frogs, whose entire bodies freeze solid in the winter.

Spring also begins the migration of wood frogs, spotted salamanders and other amphibians from their upland habitat to the pools to court and breed. They typically are only in the pools for a couple of weeks; their tadpoles will mature by the end of the June.

Vernal pools are a unique forest phenomenon because without an external water source, they dry up each year, which provides wet breeding spots for frogs and salamanders free of predatory fish.

The pools are typically a 10th of an acre and are not protected by state law because of their small size.

Two brothers, C.J. and Austin Vyskockil, brought to D'Angelo's walk by their grandparents, Claudia and Gary Norton, of Locke, crouched over the edge of the pool, using turkey basters doubling as critter catchers. Their youngest brother, Jesse, was more entertained by throwing sticks and stomping his boots into the water's edge.

"I haven't been able to catch anything, so I think they're all hiding underground," C.J. said as he leaned over the water with turkey baster in hand.

By the end of the hour-long search effort, C.J. finally had his prize find: a snail.