Robin Agarwal, Jim Scholfield

No live newts, no juveniles, 47 dead newts, 3 millipedes, 2 ring necked snakes, 1 large toad who should have known better.
Majority of newts on uphill side of road as usual.
3 trucks, 1 walker, 10 cars,2 parked cars, 7 bicycles

90 dead newts, 0 live newts, mostly dry but a few on the fresh side
1 dead garter snake

Warm afternoon, mid-70s, dry for a while now. Some nice flowers starting along the road.

The downside of going in the afternoon on the north side is encountering the flood of vehicles to and from rowing practice. Just those trips alone must represent hundreds of regularly-scheduled newt-squishing opportunities in a day.

Moving cars: 78
Parked cars: 12
Bikes: 3
Peds: 3

Holy shit people, it's bad on Hicks road. Only a few earlier in the season, but today was awful. Along the main part of the Guadalupe reservoir there were 245 dead newts. Further up the hill, in a very small stretch of road just down from the stop sign at Mt Umunhum road there were another 118. Many more in between that I didn't document.

Originally I went there to make newt observations along the reservoir itself, then took a walk on Woods trail (where there were several live newts and one dead), and on the way back home saw a live newt on the road just after turning left onto Hicks. When I stopped to escort them, I saw a shocking number in such a small area, so I had to document there too. Along with the 118 dead ones near the stop sign there were at least 5 live ones heading across the road, all in the same direction (away from Almaden Quicksilver, toward Sierra Azul), plus several other live ones further down the road/nearer the reservoir on my way home, going in the same direction. Which makes me think that a lot more will try to cross the road tonight. :-(

A MidPen ranger stopped on Hicks in the stop sign massacre area and we talked about it. I noted that this area might be park land, and since MidPen is working on the newts at Lexington, they should apply some of that work near Jacques Ridge too. He thanked me for being out there. I wish we didn't need to be.

Here are the observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-03-04&place_id=any&subview=map&taxon_id=27816&user_id=newtpatrol&verifiable=any

Conducted survey of the South section from 8:46 am - 12:30 pm.

Weather: Clear, cold (45 F) and sunny. Tiny amount of rainfall March 3-5 was 0.15 inch, apparently just enough to be inspirational to the newts. http://www.weathercat.net/wxraindetail.php

Observers: Robin and Jim

Newts: 342 dead adult newts plus 3 dead juveniles. No live newts, very few fresh. Oddly high proportion of "floaters," not sure what's happening, since we were the last NPers to do the road a few days ago and I am careful to toss them over the cliff.

Non-newts: 1 shrew sp. (possibly Ornate Shrew: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/108146218), 1 Arboreal Salamander, 1 American Toad.

Documented Human Activity:
Cars: 20
Trucks: 1
Motorcycles: 0
Bikes: 5
Pedestrians: 3
Parked cars: 3

Wednesday, 9:15-12:40 no live newts. 483 dead newts
I walked with Elliott (@onyxrat) - thanks for all your help!
Weather: nice, a bit windy.
Coverage: from the Jones Trailhead parking lot to the second stop sign.
Newts: we documented 205 newt on the hill side, and 278 on the reservoir side - more newts are walking back from the reservoir now! Only one of the newts was fresh, the rest were very dry. About 3 were juveniles, I'll try finding them to add them to the project.
We saw many CA newt egg clasters in the little pond by Limekiln trail.
Other roadkills: Tylobolus millipede, caterpillar, glowworm beetle, fence lizard, slender salamander, a black salamander - either Arboreal Salamander (Aneides lugubris) or Santa Cruz Black Salamander (Aneides niger).
Traffic: 34 cars, 7 trucks, 3 motorcycles, 10 bikes, 9 parked cars (1 car in the farthest parking lot).
My observations of the day - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-03-09&place_id=any&user_id=merav&verifiable=any
Also saw a merganser duck swimming down in Limekiln creek. I got a crapy photo with my Tough camera - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/108282845

South section - 03/15/2022
Conducted survey of the South section from 8:30 am - 11:15 am.

Weather: Light drizzle (0.01" rain for the first 30 minutes. http://www.weathercat.net/wxraindetail.php)

Observers: Robin and Merav

Newts: 30 dead adult newts plus 1 dead juvenile. Two live newts.

Non-newts: Sierran Tree Frog, juvenile Alligator Lizard, Western Fence Lizard, two caterpillars, a few Jerusalem Crickets. Also found my first Ceanothus Silk Moth cocoon on a roadside bush, which was cool.

Documented Human Activity:
Cars: 23
Bikes: 3
Conversations with locals about newts: 1

48 dead newts, 1 live!, 2 juveniles, 4 Tylobolus millipedes
Indeterminate which way the Live one was moving.
Majority of dead ones were very fresh
1 walker,12 cars, 4 parked cars, 7 bicycles

South section - 03/20/2022
Conducted survey of the South section from 7:30 am - 10:30 am (earlier than usual time)

Weather: Clear, sunny, started at 41 F (Note that area received 0.09" rain the afternoon before: http://www.weathercat.net/wxraindetail.php)

Observer: Robin

A higher-than-usual proportion of freshly-dead newts, including two that must have walked onto the road between the start time and the end time. Also more other amphibians than usual. In one of my four conversations about newts, a local resident told me she saw a Mountain Lion crossing Alma Bridge Road where we were chatting two evenings prior. She had lived in the mountains many years and was knowledgeable enough to convince me ("Long tail as big as my wrist; it looked at me as it walked right in front of my car."), so I have added this report as a unphotoed, casual observation.

Newts:
121 dead adult newts, nearly all freshly dead within last 12 hours
4 dead juvenile newts
3 live adult newts in road (moved to safety)
1 live juvenile newt in road (moved to safety)
1 injured adult newt in road (probably fatal, moved to safety)

Dead Non-newts:
1 Santa Cruz Black Salamander (adult)
1 Sierran Tree Frog
4 California Slender Salamanders (plus one alive, moved to safety)
2 Western Fence Lizards
1 millipede
1 Button's banana slug

Documented Human Activity:
Cars: 23 moving, 1 parked
Trucks: 1
Bikes: 12 (plus 1 tandem bicycle)
Pedestrians: 9
Conversations with people about newts: 4 (!)

Final note of interest: Several trees, mostly oaks, on the downhill/Reservoir side of the road have been flagged with various colors of tape. A few say "do not cut." A closer examination revealed bird nests in many of the flagged trees. :-) I wonder who who is marking them.

North section - 03/23/2022
Conducted survey of the North section from 9:00 am - 11:45 am

Weather: Marine layer until 9:45 then clear and sunny

Observers: Robin and Merav

Newts: 162 dead newts, including a few juveniles. Very few fresh, no live newts. Thank goodness the construction-traffic occurred during the day, because there was never more than a 30-second gap in the flow of vehicles. No way any newt or salamander could have crossed.

Dead Non-newts: Alligator Lizard, Western Fence Lizards, Arthropods

Documented Human Activity:
These ridiculous numbers are not a typo! Construction on Northbound Highway 17 at The Cats Saloon area caused a major backup. Many drivers diverted to Alma Bridge Road for a (calculated on Google Maps) significant time savings of 20 minutes. The result was a steady stream of cars on ABR the entire time of the survey, with many annoyed drivers accelerating when they could. For whatever reason, this coincided with a weekend-level number of cyclists, too.
Cars: 434 moving, 13 parked
Trucks: 35 (note that semis are not allowed on Alma Bridge Road)
Motorcycles: 1
Bikes: 30
Pedestrians: 3
Conversations with people about newts: 2

Monday, 9:00-12:00 one live, one injured, 72 dead newts
Weather: rained all night in San Jose, in the morning it was still cloudy, then cleared out. The road was still wet.
Coverage: from Aldercroft Heights Rd intersection to the second stop sign.
Newts: 72 dead newts, most were freshly killed. At least 6 juveniles. 22 of them were found on the lake side of the road, 50 on the hill side. The injured newt looked ok, but had an injury near its tail. Wasn't moving much. The live individual was seen crossing the road from the lake to the hill, then climbing the steep hill.
I walked down to Soda Spring to see what it looked like after the rain. I only saw one newt, and a huge bullfrog inside the creek. Also noticed for the first time beautiful leaf beetles & eggs on a young tree by the road. And tons of flowers...

Other roadkills: millipedes, a toad, a slander salamander, 2 arboreal salamanders, and others. Also helped 2 banana slugs (one large, one small) and a millipede cross the road.
Traffic: 5 truck (SJJJ, Midpen), 20 cars, 1 pedestrian, 1 parked car.
My observations of the day - https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-03-28&place_id=any&user_id=merav&verifiable=any