It's all a bit much
As Yet more Rain falls in our Pond
4/25/20262 min read
In a recent blog I spoke of one tiny creature for whom this abundant rainfall is causing problems. One evening we had a visitor. It was a lone female toad trundling past our bedroom window. Could the toads be back? We remembered the disaster of their last visit when the male toads all tried to lock onto the only female , and sadly, drowned her. After that debacle, they all left sharpish, and as for the lines of toad spawn that would normally be woven between the flag irises, there was none. But on this occasion , after spotting our lone visitor, we searched the pond the next morning. Alas, we could not see a single toad. Of course, toads only come to the pond to breed, so this female toad was living in the vicinity. But wait ! What was that we saw? Swimming around merrily were lots and lots of tadpoles;
"So where's the problem? "you may well ask. "With all this rain, your pond must be fresh,clean, and just perfect for wild life." Certainly! Our source constantly replenishes it, and pond life flourishes. But what flows in so abundantly, must flow out, and as it does so , lots of our tiny tadpoles flow with it. Try as we might to stop this, they wriggle past. If they go too far they will vanish down a pipe and be dispersed over the garden. In despair, B. had a bright idea. He sucks them up using a large pipe and deposits them back into the pond. Before long, they will have developed into tiny little toads, and then they will be safe. They will sit around the stone edges of the pond until they hop away. It is said that toads always return to the same pond to breed, so hopefully we will see them again next year. Only next time, all generations had better be well behaved!
