Tuesday, May 22, 2018

The March of the Toads

About a week ago I was looking in the two ponds in the lower field at Pauling's Farm in Valley Forge and noticed large black moving blobs.  When I looked closer I realized the blogs were hundreds of baby tadpoles.  Today, I went back and looked in the pond and saw nothing.  Just a few water bugs.  As I turned to go, I noticed a little moth land in the brush near the pond.  I kneeled down to take a picture and saw all this movement in the grass.  Again, I looked closer and there were hundreds of little tiny frogs or toads that had emerged from the pond and were making their way back into the woods where they would reside until next spring.  It was amazing to see all these little tiny creatures hopping towards the woods.  I would pick up leaves and find maybe ten little toads under each leaf.  I picked up a few and tried to place them on wildflowers with limited success.  These little guys were less than 1/2 the size of my pinky fingernail.  They were fast and quite elusive.  Here are a few of the toads I found.




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