Can you see the frog in today’s photo? It took me a while to see the frog when I was studying this vernal pool near the cabin. Even its eyes look like bubbles on the surface. Isn’t that clever?
I thought the frog might be laying eggs, but I couldn’t get close enough to tell. My feet were already wet, as I hadn't planned to go bog wallowing when I started out on a short hike. One thing about all the rain that’s fallen this spring is that the mountain is full of these vernal pools. They are great spots for frogs and tadpoles. When I hike with the kids from adventure camp, we always look for raccoon and opossum tracks here as those predators haunt pools like this one for those tadpoles. Sometimes I think the kids are as excited by the various water bugs that ply the vernal waters as they are by the tracks.
This year the pools are plentiful and deep, though they will still disappear by August, if not before. Perhaps some of the tadpoles will survive to reach frog-hood, though I can’t believe that many of them will. They must, though, since the ponds are full of frogs.
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I saw him (or her?) but it took a minute. Plenty of water on the hills for the frogs this year.
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