Tiny things #3

Another tiny things post;  I've already shown you the very young raccoon, the baby mantises. Today it's time to look at the tiny toads!

There are still hundreds of these tadpoles in my pond, but many of them have made the transition to being primarily land creatures. Let's take a look.

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There are a couple of things I've noticed about the tadpoles at this stage.

First, they're really sensitive to motion, and scatter whenever I move up to the pond's edge. They return a minute later though.

Second, they do almost nothing except laze around for most of the time. When they were younger and lacked legs, they were much more active, sitting still for only a few seconds at a time.

Now, they pretty much just sit around all the time (when they're not being scared away by me). I suppose that's more in tune with their adult behavior: sit still or the camouflage won't work!

Here's a movie I put together showing them doing very little:

A month or two ago when I first told my wife that there were dozens and dozens of tadpoles in the pond, she asked "how are you going to mow the lawn with all of those little toads hopping around?"

It's a good question, as they are all over the place, and so difficult to see. I have to step carefully when I move up to the pond. I suppose I'll have to hope that most of them stay in the plants around the pond edge  or that they move downhill a bit, out of the lawn.

This was a land toad that hopped back into the water when I came near.

Maybe I'll need to switch to using my ancient reel mower back here for a while. That would be "fun".

I really am enjoying watching these tadpoles turn into toads!


Note: I've seen no indication that there are any different tadpoles in here, so I don't think there are any little frogs developing, only toads. Time will tell though.

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