The Dead Pool comes to life

It's been exactly a year since I wrote my sad tale about the frogs we were "losing" in our pond, which I'd started referring to as the Dead Pool.

Since then the rate of loss has decreased, but the reason for the deaths has become graphically clear. It's a bit of a give-away when you look out of your study window to see the heron stood atop the lych-gate with a pair of frog's legs sticking out of its beak.

It was too late for that one, but I did rush out flapping my arms and yelling when I saw the damn bird hoik another out of the pond. This second frog was luckier, as the heron dropped it and flew off in a fright. The dazed frog managed to hop away into the bushes so I like to think it survived. At least for the time being.

The really good news is that the pond is presently full of tadpoles. Not as full as it was - when they first hatched it looked as though there were thousands; the water was black with them. Well, OK, it always looks black, what with having a black pond liner at the bottom, but you know what I mean. But fuller than it might have been had Nikki not come running in to fetch me after one of the local cats had pulled a massive blob of spawn out of the water and was proceeding to munch through it.  I tipped it back in. I don't think we lost much.

Having thousands (OK, hundreds) of tadpoles wriggling about in the pond has been a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand we love having them, and waiting for all the little froglets to come hopping out. On the other hand we don't really like having the pond totally submerged under a carpet of pondweed, but we haven't been able to do anything about it because each handful of pondweed removed comes complete with half-a-dozen little wrigglers, all caught up in the tendrils. So we've left it, mostly. Not sure if the lack of light is slowing their development though. Online resources suggest they should start growing legs 6-9 weeks after hatching. This lot hatched at the beginning of May and are only now starting to show signs of legginess. We continue to wait for the first hopper.

At which point I probably won't be able to cut the grass for a couple of weeks O_O.