Tales from the Pond

This frog find was one when our friends were over. I know I have said it before but our pond is a source of continual amazement. The creatures we are privy too blow me away.

This little guy we thought at first might be a salamander starting off, with that long tail. However, his back legs are jumping legs, as opposed to crawling legs. Hmm. So we did a little bit of research and we think it may be a spring peeper froglet . These frogs live in the trees, once they are adults they leave the pond and head to the woodlands. These cute frogs hibernate over winter in the woods, under a rock or tree. They have a high concentration of sugar in their blood which allows them to survive the extreme cold. In spring these frogs return to their ponds for breeding. It is at this time we hear the male make it's loud call. This site gave a fascinating explanation of the way these frogs eat while in the pond;

Peeper tadpoles are herbivorous. They feed by inhaling

water and filtering particles out of it. They eat blue-green

algae, a bacteria toxic to fish and shellfish. In the process

of feeding, they clean up the water in which they live. One

ounce of peeper tadpoles (about 125) can clean twelve gallons

of water every day. Adult peepers eat what they can find in

the soil and leaf litter in the woodlands. They eat any animals

small enough to fit into their own little mouths: insects, mites,

spiders and snails.

The kids will often use a bucket to scoop up water, getting at the same time a big chunk of dirt from the bottom of the pond. This produces some amazing finds. On one such pull they found a water tiger, dragonfly larva, mayfly larva, common backswimmer and frog eggs. My pond creature knowledge has grown far greater than I ever would have imagined!

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