Polliwog and Tadpole Days Coming Soon!

Tadpole seems to be the more popular name but is synonymous with polliwog. But I don't have any tadpoles in my pond. Yet!

I was scouting around the pond this evening hoping to spy one of the Woodhouse's Toads. I didn't spy any toads but I did come across what I believe are toad eggs.

In the photo to the left there are a number of "strings" criss-crossing the rocks. The color is mostly brown which, amazingly, is the same color of the toads I've seen. There are thousands of eggs. For every inch of egg string there are probably a dozen eggs. In this batch there is easily 25 feet of egg string.

I guess all that noisy screeching and carrying on got some toads all hot and bothered resulting in the egg strings.

Of course I will keep an eye on things and report on events as they arise.

This picture on the right is pretty much the same as the one above but just zoomed in a bit. If you look closely you can see that the egg strings are kinked. I believe that is caused by the way the female toad stores the eggs inside her body. As many as there are she must pack them in there pretty tight.

Wow, this is a new thing for the frog blog. Can you imagine how many of these little polliwogs will be cruising around the pond? I realize that not many will actually survive to adulthood but for me this is almost better than watching Joe stalk her lunch.

Mother Nature will never cease to amaze this 'Ol Phart.