Pond Life

 A quick sampling of the tadpoles in our garden pond showed that many of them were still some way off developing limbs, which I guess is a sign of the late spring - the frogs spawned very late this year. (Double-click for a larger image).

This tadpole is a sharing the trough that I photographed it in with a flatworm.

A water log-louse Asellus aquaticus. There are vast numbers of these scavengers down at the bottom of the pond, where there's  thick layer of decaying leaves.

Underside of a water hog-louse. These crustaceans are isopods - all their legs are more or less the same length. For more isopods, click here and here.

Possibly the least lovable animal in the pond - a leech. I suspect that these parasitize the pond snails. The dark patterning is its digestive system, visible through the body wall.

Some Nice Moves from our Garden Newts ....

We only recently realised that the small pond that I installed three years ago, which is only about one metre long, has been colonised by palmate newts, which are now resplendent in their courtship colours...... which are not so evident from this angle ....

.... but show up nicely when you can see the amphibian's flanks ........

...... and tail.

Tonight I spent a fascinating half-hour watching the whole courtship ritual. These two are patrolling the dead leaves on the bottom of the pond, through a blizzard of water fleas that will, in due course, provide plenty of food for the newt tadpoles.

There was a lot of chasing going on, over and under the leaves, and then ...

.... this one spotted a potential mate ....

.... and chose the brightest-coloured beech leaf in the pond as his dance floor, where he began to display some of his best moves ....

...... first positioning himself at right-angles to her and using his tail to waft water in her direction ....

...... then executing an acrobatic handstand and ninety degree turn ....

..... until he could waft the stream of water directly over her with his vibrating tail.

Then the batteries on the camera (a waterproof Pentax W20) ran out ....but he's probably still dazzling her with his dancing now, as darkness falls.

How to talk to frogs

Just 10 days ago our garden pond was covered in a layer of ice. Yesterday I counted 44 frogs in it, wallowing in a sea of gelatinous spawn. They certainly haven't wasted any time in reproducing and they're still at it..... it's a bacchanalian orgy in there. This year I've covered the pond with a net, to ward of the predatory heron that wrought terrible havoc last year in the midst of all this amphibian lust.

.... meanwhile the spawn that has already been laid is beginning to develop. If you look closely at these eggs you can see a furrow across the centre of each. This is the first division of the fertilised egg, the first step on the road to it becoming a tadpole and then ....... if it's incredibly lucky, a frog. You can find a detailed illustrated description of the whole process, from fertilisation to froglet, here.

Yesterday I tried a little experiment that I've tried before... which always works. I used a portable recorder to record the frogs' mating calls, then played them back to them. The effect was instantaneous - 44 pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction and they all advanced towards the recorder. Intimidating.