The storm has passed, all of the excess water has drained
away and the pond is full of chocolate water.
This condition won’t last long.
Within a week, the water will clear and the level will drop by about 18
inches.
The extra water has not slowed the breeding activities of
the Wood Frogs. Frogs cover the pond and
continue their courtship activities whether it’s daylight or dark.
A lot of courtship action takes place in open water, but
when the time comes to lay eggs, the Wood Frogs move to the inundated shrubs.
Egg laying began just over a week ago and new batches of
eggs are still being laid. The frogs
seem to prefer attaching the egg clusters to live twigs at a point near the
surface of the water.
The dark masses are egg clusters that were laid within the
last 24 hours. They can’t be any older
than that, because prior to the big rain, the branches were above the
water. The unfortunate fact is that
those branches are not going to stay submerged for very long.
The weight of the eggs will pull the branch down for a
while, but eventually the water will drop away and leave the eggs hanging in
the air. As the water level falls, I go
around with my pole pruner and clip the branches containing egg clusters. This allows the eggs to remain submerged for
the two to three week period prior to hatching.
Once hatched, the tadpoles don’t seem to have any trouble in moving with
the changing water levels.
Terrible day for storms and see northern Adams county is under a tornado warning. Hope you're holding up okay and no storm damage finds your property. I'll expect an update on the matter in a forthcoming blog post!
ReplyDeleteHi Steve..was wondering about you down there and if those frogs where still in the pond or of on a funnel of water haha!!
ReplyDeleteSure looks like you got your share of rain and so did the frogs...they don't care what color it is ..well maybe not gray water though...they could end up with two heads or two legs or something !!
Stay safe!!
Grace
Hi Andrew. People and buildings survived the storms. I'll have to get out later to see what happened to the property. I expect there's been a change or two along the creek.
ReplyDeleteHi Grace. There were reports of a tornado on the ground near here, but I don't know if that's true. Our electric just came back on so we're in the process of reconnecting with the outside world. I can hear the frogs outside calling as I type.