Its arrived!
The cycle begins again - Pondlife moments, part two
Well there we have it! Three days after that first deep croak, a tiny blob of frogspawn appeared. My heart skipped a nature beat, as most natural miracles tend to do for me. In the dawn light, there was no sign of the deliverer. The morning birds singing for all their might, failing to notice the new pond presence. The slight breeze gently rocking the eggs with its rhythmic wave. No fanfare, no fuss, no placards stating its occurrence - just silence from within the waterline.
I stepped nearer to have a closer look. I noticed that although the frogspawn on the surface was only a tiny amount, maybe sixty eggs, huddling side by side, the clump made its way downwards into the depths of the pond. Many layers, too many to count the individual eggs laid must have run into the thousands.
It is a numbers game with frogspawn. It has to face many perils before it can say “I’ve made it”. Perils from within the pond (a tasty meal for dragonfly larva) , visitors to the pond (blackbirds are rather partial to a tadpole aperitif) and the climate fluctuations (I have had many years of frozen frogspawn) all demonstrate the need for the species to produce as much viable offspring as possible. It has got off to a good start.
So, that first clump has given me hope.
Hope that the cycle has begun again
Hope that nature knows how to be prolific
Hope that my little pond can once again support the miracle of life, and all its diversity
Maybe this offering will be the first of many. Maybe, one day soon, I will spot an adult frog, mid-song. I live in hope.
The frogspawn will lay in the shallows for a few weeks before the mass will start to shows signs of having a life of its own. But for now, I wait for the next stage, nature teaching me, once again, that patience and making a small effort to welcome it into to garden will be rewarded. Thank you for choosing me.
I am curious
Do you consciously put in some time during the week to acknowledge the wonder of nature or do you do it when you see it?
Stopped to look inside a nodding daffodil today....just to look
Boy, it must be a miracle that there are any frogs at all, having to run that gauntlet! Sort of like writers, eh? Surviving everything and eventually, here we are. Who knew we had so much in common with frogs?!!