The days are warming up, the songbirds are singing, the garden floor is erupting with life and my sluggish, hum drum winter mood is lifting. This can only mean one thing...SPRING HAS SPRUNG!!
Spring...oh wonderful, wonderful spring. My FAVOURITE season of the year - dewey mornings, longer days, promise and anticipation of summer. PURE BLISS.
With spring comes (drum role please) TADPOLES!! Our little local ponds are filled with those beautiful, gelatanous globs of eggs clinging to the reeds and dead branches. We had so much fun last spring raising tadpoles, that we decided to try it again this year. We collected two small clusters of eggs - one cluster has the typical black speckled frog eggs, and the other is a much denser egg cluster of light brown eggs, which we found a bit deeper in the water. We think they may be salamander. Wouldn't that be exciting!
We collected our eggs in a small cooler and were amazed when we transferred it to our container at home. That small sampling produced a magnitude of life. We counted at least twenty caddisfly larvae, a damselfly nymph and possibly dragonfly larvae (which we'll need to remove, as they'll both eat the tadpoles). We also have a funny creature swimming around just below the surface. We think it's a water boatman but are not quite sure...will try to get a photo of it.
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