We saw two warblers yesterday - a gift of our stream, since we rarely had warblers before we built the stream and pond. One was a yellow-rumped warbler and the other was a common yellowthroat, though not so common anymore.
We also decided to rescue more tadpoles from the swimming pool down the street. This time I took our pond net. I learned last weekend that chasing tadpoles with a small plastic box wasn't very efficient. There were *literally* millions -- possibly zillions! -- of tadpoles of various stages of development, so there were obviously more than a few batches laid in that pool. They were so far surviving very well in the shallow water above the plastic pool cover, but either they will be killed when chlorine is added or they (probably) won't be able to manage the slippery plastic to leave the pond when they're ready. I hear toads singing all over the neighborhood, and I suspect almost all are in swimming pools. So sad!
Because of our last few years' failures in getting tadpoles to the stage where they can leave, we've put some in an aquarium, which is now residing on our kitchen countertop. (We're making good use of our small handlens, shown in the photo, to see not only the tadpoles, but all the other fascinating micro-creatures in the pond water.) I think they're probably happier there than they would be in the very cold ponds at the moment, but it mainly is an experiment to see if they survive better than their siblings in the ponds. Probably this year there won't be a difference, though, since now we suspect that it was our own green frogs that were eating the tadpoles in previous years. Since our frog didn't overwinter successfully, we don't have that problem this year. If we get frogs this year, we'll know whether we can in the future raise them in aquariums after the eggs are raised. After all, we don't need the aquariums again until the monarchs come back and we use them to raise the caterpillars!
We saw two warblers yesterday - a gift of our stream, since we rarely had warblers before we built the stream and pond. One was a yellow-rumped warbler and the other was a common yellowthroat, though not so common anymore.
We also decided to rescue more tadpoles from the swimming pool down the street. This time I took our pond net. I learned last weekend that chasing tadpoles with a small plastic box wasn't very efficient. There were *literally* millions -- possibly zillions! -- of tadpoles of various stages of development, so there were obviously more than a few batches laid in that pool. They were so far surviving very well in the shallow water above the plastic pool cover, but either they will be killed when chlorine is added or they (probably) won't be able to manage the slippery plastic to leave the pond when they're ready. I hear toads singing all over the neighborhood, and I suspect almost all are in swimming pools. So sad!
Because of our last few years' failures in getting tadpoles to the stage where they can leave, we've put some in an aquarium, which is now residing on our kitchen countertop. (We're making good use of our small handlens, shown in the photo, to see not only the tadpoles, but all the other fascinating micro-creatures in the pond water.) I think they're probably happier there than they would be in the very cold ponds at the moment, but it mainly is an experiment to see if they survive better than their siblings in the ponds. Probably this year there won't be a difference, though, since now we suspect that it was our own green frogs that were eating the tadpoles in previous years. Since our frog didn't overwinter successfully, we don't have that problem this year. If we get frogs this year, we'll know whether we can in the future raise them in aquariums after the eggs are raised. After all, we don't need the aquariums again until the monarchs come back and we use them to raise the caterpillars!
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