Salamanders are so cool and very elusive. I wish I spent as much time looking for them and successfully finding them now as I did as a child.

Sometimes I get lucky and just find a salamander right where I can train my lens on it. It always seems if I am intentionally seeking out a salamander to photograph I can never find one.

I have seen salamanders on the edges of rock walls. And I have found them under rocks.

But one of the coolest experiences was finding them right in my own back yard. Just out in the open.

When we first moved into the house we live in now we were very lucky to find salamanders that at least I had never seen before. We saw spotted salamanders.

If you have never seen a spotted salamander they are quite a treat. They can be six to 10 inches long and their bodies are thicker than your fingers. And they are just so cool looking.

We were surprised to see these large salamanders swimming in the small pond on our property. The pond that was a large part of the reason we wanted to live here in the first place. We would occasionally see the Spotted Salamanders crawling through the grass near the pond as well. Once I even went out onto our cement front porch and found that a Spotted Salamander had climbed up onto the porch.

I don’t know that I have any photos of these Spotted Salamanders that are particularly good photos, but I wanted to share the ones that I like the most. Check out the photo of the Spotted Salamander in my hand. Doesn’t it look like that little guy is smiling? How adorable is that?

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