At the Tadpole Ponds

Ben, Clara and I walked down to the river today to look for tadpoles. We went by the river first, and were surprised to see some in little eddies off the main current. Give how fast the river rises during heavy rains, this seems like a high-risk place to put your babies.

But there they were.  Maybe they washed into the river in Friday night's rain.

Then over to the tadpole ponds, which are on the river floodplain but sheltered from all but the biggest storms. Tadpoles by the thousands. When we brought some of these home a few years ago, they turned into tiny dark gray tree frogs, but I know nothing about tadpoles so I couldn't tell you if all the ones in these ponds are the same species or not.