Alexandra Kirk cradled quivering life in her hands. She had reached into a vernal pool on Friday, April 8, where she found a cluster of wood frog eggs nestled around a twig and floating on the pool's surface. Small larvae inside tiny jellylike sacks waited there, soon to emerge as tadpoles before morphing into wood frogs this season.

She slowly walked along the pool's edges. At first, Ms Kirk had found only mosquito larvae, and was "not seeing any life" to indicate that the forest amphibians' eggs had survived after the adults mated in early March. Creeping carefully in waterproof boots and pausing to lean in close, Ms Kirk eventually saw what she hoped were thriving eggs, and found a healthy cluster.

"Hope is not lost," she said.

Dipping cupped hands into the pool, she soon held tiny, clear eggs up for inspection. "These look like wood frogs," she said, later consulting a field guide to be certain.

After the adults generated thousands of eggs last month, some, but not all, of the masses survived receding water. Already by early April the vernal pool's size, largest in the spring, was slowly dwindling. Some eggs in this particular pool near Great Quarter Road had been stranded on the forest floor.

Gently letting the eggs slip back into the water, she noted that vernal pools can dry up, and the eggs' survival "is iffy." The frogs breeding in the pond this year probably started their lives in the same location. She had read that "most come back to the pool where they were born."

A 2014 Keene State graduate with a degree in environmental studies, Ms Kirk completed a senior capstone project focused on vernal pools "and how vital they are to the surrounding ecosystem." After drying her hands Friday and walking along a path back to Great Quarter Road, she said, "Amphibians are so cool, and to think I used to be afraid to pick them up."

While working on her capstone project, "I learned that the greatest threats to [vernal pool] breeding amphibians are directly related to roads; collisions with cars, road deicing salts, and habitat fragmentation," she said.

She interned with the Salamander Crossing Brigades, a citizen-science program in Keene, N.H., that helps to reduce amphibian road mortality. Volunteers gathered up the frogs or salamanders that are migrating from the early spring mud and moving toward vernal pools. The volunteers gathered additional data via traps to catch creatures they had missed. Traps "gave us an initial understanding of how much of the total population of amphibians were being carried across the street by volunteers, and how many made it safely across the street themselves and landed in the traps," she said.

At that time, she also overcame that squeamish feeling of picking up a frog. During the brigade project, she said, "I picked one up, now or never. I had to get it across the road.

"The brigades were made up of volunteers of all ages - kids, too - who would head out on rainy spring nights with their rain gear, reflective vest, and flashlight to established road-crossing sites to move hundreds of pond-breeding frogs and salamanders across the street by hand," Ms Kirk said.

There are volunteer brigades "all over New England. They're a great way for people to come together, get involved in the community, and most importantly, save frogs and salamanders," she said.

On one rainy night, she and other volunteers saw that the amphibians were "moving to the wetlands and we had hundreds in buckets," and helped them across the road, concerned for their survival. "Amphibians are disappearing so fast; there are so many roads," Ms Kirk said. In just a few hours there are "hundreds [of amphibians] moving all at once and cars do significant damage."

That experience "made me love amphibians. I never thought I would," she said.

Amphibians are "particularly vulnerable to road mortality because they travel in large, concentrated masses on a handful of rainy spring nights known as 'Big Nights,'" Ms Kirk said. She fears their gradual population decline, which could lead to "the disappearance of local species."

Ms Kirk remembered a recent backpacking trip, and a particular night when she could not get to sleep. "I wrote in my journal that I should start a brigade in Newtown." She had had "such a positive experience" participating in the Salamander Crossing Brigade that she hopes to establish a volunteer group in Newtown. Ms Kirk has heard the frogs trilling this season, and has been thinking about investigating local vernal pools.

"From these experiences, in addition to having an amazing mentor, Brett Thelen, science director for the Harris Center for Conservation and Education in New Hampshire," she said, "I am hoping to get an idea about where vernal pools are in Newtown, specifically those within close proximity of the road, to start a pilot study to see where potential crossing sites would be.

"Based on how many wetlands there are in town and the number of vernal pools solely in my neck of the woods, I have a hunch that there are other crossing sites in town," Ms Kirk said.

She is relying on residents to tell her about additional sites. "I thought reaching out to the public would be a great way to do this and to find out if there are any other concerned citizens in town who would like to get involved," said Ms Kirk.

She described her experience in the brigade as "life-changing … and now that I am back, I am curious to see if there is a road mortality issue in town."

To report an amphibian road crossing site, or for more information, contact Ms Kirk at alexx318@gmail.com.