With some helpful direction we find frogspawn at the local park and check in as it develops… We also find something undefined but wriggly in the garden bucket at home!
This is another challenge that has been greatly aided by circumstance. A neighbour involved in a local gardening group has found frogspawn in one of their ponds. It’s a very small pond and they’ve been working hard at fostering it so all are excited and it means B and I get a whole new challenge option.
Frogspawn is one of those activities which I read about in my childhood but never actually did. A bit of research confirms my suspicion that it’s illegal to take it out of ponds (not that I would have in this case anyway- it’s a very small pond and it needs it all!). The park is close to us though so we can check in on it every few weeks and see how it grows.
295 – Spotting frogspawn by the light of the full moon
Wednesday 12 March. Clear skies. 8°C
The pond is very close to where B goes for brownies which is helpful. We head out fifteen minutes ahead of time to see if we can find it. Perhaps unsurprisingly it’s not easy to spot – I’m very glad someone wiser than me has pointed us in the right direction. We finally work out the bubbly, slimy looking stuff on the top of the pond is IT. We watch it for a bit and become aware of things moving slightly in the bubbles. B gets quickly distracted.
“Look. The suns’ setting over there and the moons exactly opposite it”.
She’s excited and I’ll take that. She’s right too. I hadn’t noticed. The full moon is round again and I’m chuffed we’ve noticed it for the second month in a row (see looking for the moon). Coming back from brownies later it’s really bright and we watch it all the way home. It’s only later, when we post the challenge, that we realise what a witchy challenge it was with the slimy frogspawn and the full moon.
288 – Checking in on the frogspawn… and finding tadpoles
Wednesday 19 March. Sunny. 13°C
A week later and we go back to check in on the frogspawn… and find hundreds and hundreds of tiny little tadpoles. It was really satisfying. B was fascinated. Most were still and then you’d get a crazy one racing across the water. We carefully hooked one out with a little flat wooden stick we’d taken with us and it wiggled till we put it back in the water. This is definitely going to be a weekly check in now!
274 – Checking in on the tadpoles…
Wednesday 2 April. Sunny. 17°C
Two weeks on and they’re definitely getting bigger… I think they’ve grown a lot. B is a little disappointed they’re not the size of golf balls! They have a good wiggle motion going now.
245 – and another tadpole check in…
Thursday 1 May. Dusk (clear skies). 20°C
Almost a month on and after quite a bit of travelling, we’re back and checking in on the tadpoles again. We’re both a bit surprised to find them not that different from a month ago. Definitely bigger but still a long way from being a frog. There are less though and we wonder if the older ones are less conspicuous.
231 – The last tadpole check in… for now
Thursday 15 May. Dusk (clear skies). 21°C
Hmm… we’re checking in on the tadpoles again. One of the nature volunteers has posted a picture of one with little legs and arms emerging and we’re very excited… but we just find the old, tadpole shaped kind. There are definitely less than there were. B is not impressed.
After a bit of thought we’re realising that we’re probably not going to find the bigger ones because they’re going to be harder to see. The pond is very small and covered in green stuff now and finding the babies is hard enough. And when they get to froglet size (which we REALLY want to see) we realise they’re going to be moving about and hiding in the weeds.
So we’re calling it quits on tadpole check ins for a bit. We’ll keep an eye out, but time to do something else on Thursday nights.
210 – Finding undefined wriggly things swimming in the garden bucket
Monday 2 June. Cloudy. 17°C
A post script challenge. It’s a few weeks on and other visitors to Victoria Square have posted wonderful pictures of froglets; but we’ve failed to find them yet. We have made a different discovery though. Our garden bucket has been standing out for months now and is filthy and half full of water. Today we noticed it has it’s own wildlife growing in it.
We don’t know what they are but there are at least two types and they’re both wriggly. One swims in a round, comma shaped flick. The other is long, looks like a tiny poo, and moves like a caterpillar around the bottom of the bucket. We are excited… I knew there was a reason we didn’t tidy the garden. Will keep an eye…
183 – Finding midge larvae in last week’s swimming pool
Wednesday 2 July. Sunny. 21°C
It’s a few weeks on from the wriggly things in the bucket and we’ve noticed something about our paddling pool (or garden spa as we like to call it!). I should have emptied it a week ago but now there are long brown marks all over the bottom of it. We watch and spot long thin pink worm things which seem to be coming out of them. They hang around on the bottom for a bit and then start wiggling through the water at great speed making comma shapes.
B has worked out how to google photos on her phone, looks it up and says she thinks its a baby fairy shrimp. We both like this idea. The grown ups look very cute. I’m not sure though – I google and think they’re midge larvae. B is not impressed.
