From little things big things grow

[merrileemakes]

Hi common_nature, stonpicnicking_okapi shared their love of this comm as part of February Love Fest and inspired me to join. :)

I have been experiencing nature up close and personal thanks to some frogs. At the end of November, following a rain storm, my Partner and I could hear a frog in our tiny, ornamental garden pond/water feature. We're always so thrilled when this happens!

The next morning when I walked past the pond I saw a pile of bubbles and thought that was cool. The male frog has been making a bubble nest, like a betta fish, pining for a female to come join him (spoiler: I don't know much about frogs).

The next day I went to clean the pond (a bi-weekly feat during summer) and noticed that only only had the bubbles persisted, but some of them had developed little black dots. Oh my god, they're not bubbles they're eggs!

I carefully scooped them into a tub before cleaning the pond.


28 November

The eggs stayed in the tub to save them from the pond filter (which had been clogged when they were laid and wasn't working). I checked on them every day to watch the black dots get bigger.


2 December

I swear you can almost see the neural groove (where the spinal cord forms) in some eggs.

And then suddenly (David Attenborough voice)... Life


3 December

They were so tiny when they hatched. These photos were taken with my phone's zoom lens. I guesstimated there were 70-100 tiny l'il guys. They spent most of their time resting on the side of the tub or on the potted pond plant I put in there.

The guys lived in the tub for the next 2 weeks, growing big on algae on the plant and basic bitch fish food. I very carefully did water changes, with the help of a fish net and a complicated series of buckets.


18 December

I soon realised though that the perfect environment to nurture tadpoles was also the perfect way to raise mosquito larvae. Not good. So the tadpoles will have to go, because I do. not. want more mosquitoes around my house.

I contacted the local frogwatch group to ask for good locations to release these l'il guys out into the world. I figured my care for the first few weeks would have boosted their survival rate but from here they could manage. But frogwatch advised that it's illegal to transport wild amphibians due to the disease risk.

Okay, plan b. Time to baby proof the pond! That'll be in my next post.

Comments

[pauraque]

Oh, how cool! We used to see tadpoles in the creek by my house when I was growing up. (And sometimes caught some and put in them in an aquarium to watch them turn into frogs, even though it wasn't technically legal... well, the statue of limitations for amphibian crimes is probably expired by now.)

[full_metal_ox]

Welcome to common_nature! That’s some breathtaking small-scale photography: Thumbelina explores Australia! And the green coolth of the water is practically tangible; photos #4 and #5 look like slices of kiwi, with the eggs and tadpoles as seeds.

(So what did you wind up doing with the tadpoles?)

[ribirdnerd]

Very cool photographs!

[tally]

Incredible!! Amazing to see those little souls come into being~

[yourlibrarian]

I'm sure that was very cool to watch! I was just telling my partner in the last day or so about how, when I was growing up, we had so many toad tadpoles in the nearby lake that it would look like a thick black ribbon bordering the water. (I can only assume most of them perished to fish, because otherwise we would have been inundated at a biblical proportion).

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Yay! The tadpoles! I love your commentary, too.

[alchemicink]

Aww what a cute journey! Too bad about not being able to take them elsewhere, but at least they have been in good hands in your care so far 😊

[starwatcher]

I would suggest you watch closely. When I have tadpoles (seldom; I live in semi-desert southeast New Mexico, USA) they eat EVERYthing. I once saw a giant (thumb-sized) grasshopper fall into the pond; it was completely consumed within two hours. It could well be that the tadpoles will eat the mosquito larvae.

Failing that, good luck with baby-proofing the pond. But they seem instinctively to swim away from currents trying to drag them where they don't want to go. A swatch of fabric netting, like in the fish-net -- over the filter intake would probably be sufficient to protect them.

Good luck!