A Big Night on Hunts Corner Road
- jamesreddoch
- Mar 14
- 2 min read
Albany Township’s newest Maine Big Night Survey Site supports amphibian migration and expands citizen science in Western Maine.
Last May, Small Things reported on 9-year-old Kimball Burrill’s citizen-science work collecting data and rescuing migrating salamanders and frogs along a section of Hunts Corner Road in Albany Township. (If you missed the article, you can click here.) Since then, Kimball, with the support of her mom, has succeeded in getting a 1,000-foot section of their road designated as a certified Maine Big Night Survey Site.
This is an important step. Through 2025 the Maine Big Night initiative has established 335 survey sites. Most are clustered along the coast, with fewer inland and to the north. Adding the Hunts Corner Road site means more data to help conservationists and scientists better understand the population numbers and migratory routes of Maine amphibians. Most important to Kimball, “We help them get across so they don’t get squished.”
According to the Maine Amphibian and Reptile Atlas Project, many of these small and often overlooked creatures face severe threats. Nearly a third are listed as endangered, threatened, or of special concern within the state. For migrating salamanders and frogs, road traffic is a particular danger, often separating them from their forest homes and the temporary pools where they were born – pools they must return to in the early spring if they are to produce the next generation.
On rainy April nights, when temperatures climb above 40 degrees, this ancient journey begins. Among the migrants are spotted salamanders, up to seven inches with lemon-drop spots on their black bodies. Wood frogs, another spring traveler, can survive freezing in the winter and sound like quacking ducks when they gather at their natal pools. These are just two of the types of toads, frogs, newts, and salamanders you might see at a Big Night Survey Site when the conditions are right.
Kimball says that anyone can become a citizen-science volunteer like her. Visit the Maine Big Night website to find a survey site near you.
“You will need to complete a certification quiz,” she says. “Plus, you need a reflective vest and a headlamp.” Complete these steps and you’ll be ready for the first rainy night when temperatures are in the 40s.
One final tip Kimball is quick to add for those who aren’t near an official survey site – avoid driving as much as possible on Big Nights. Why? “We don’t want them to get squished,” she says with the confident nod of a committed citizen-scientist.
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