For those of you who've never seen a polliwog, they look like giant sperm cells. (Well, the term "giant" is relevant. A pollywog is about 1/4" long.)
Anyway, seeing about a billion polliwogs can only mean one thing: wanton frog sex has been going on on our pool cover.
Back in April, there were two toads in the water. Dim bulbs that they are, they'd jumped in (this was after we'd drained most of the melted snow) and couldn't figure out how to get out. They didn't seem particularly interested in each other so I figured they were probably the same gender. (Are there gay frogs?) I grabbed the screen/skimmer and easily captured the first one, setting him/her in the garden. The second did NOT want to be caught and swam away every time I tried to capture it. So I waited about half an hour. During that time, it tried to climb up the side of the cover. I figured it would get tired, and it did. Then I captured it and set it under the arborvitae.
So, how do they repay my kindness? By having a bazillion babies on the pool cover. The thing is, I don't wish to be overrun with their progeny later this summer. Yes, toads are good for the garden, but several thousand? For one thing, I'm scared of the things. They tend to leap out at you at inopportune moments. One feels compelled to scream, and the neighbors come out and wonder if you're being eviscerated or something. "No, just a toad going for my throat." They look disgusted and go back into their homes.
We pumped off at least 10-15 gallons of water yesterday, hoping the polliwogs would go with it, but alas, they didn't. Oh dear.
Hubby says polliwogs are like the seeds of maple trees. A billion fall off of every tree every year, but rarely does a tree grown from the seeds, and even rarer grows to have seeds of its own one day.
I hope he's right. I do not want to spend my entire summer saving these stupid amphibians from drowning in the pool. Been there, done that. And they keep jumping in. (I'll bet I saved the same toad at least five times last year.)
I've got a book to deliver in five weeks. I don't have time to worry about polliwogs.
How about you?
I hope you get at least one halfway industrious toad out of this, Lorna. We have them too, on our pool cover, and they're the laziest amphibians I have ever met. They wouldn't eat a mosquito if it flew right by their mouths, which is bad, as I get eaten alive every summer. If you get an industrious toad, and you don't want it, could I beg you to send it to me?
ReplyDeleteLet´s hope some of them survive. They are wonderful in the garden eating all sorts of nasties, slugs, mozzies and the like. Unfortunately they don´t have much luck with rabbits. When we have had them only 1 or 2 make it to adulthood, they get eaten by their parents.
ReplyDeleteI'm just amazed at all things nature, but how many of them will grow to be toads or are they frogs?
ReplyDeleteThis is the earliest we've ever had polliwogs on the pool cover (and there are MILLIONS). Usually they show up a week or so before the pool is opened, and the pool guys pumps off the top and they go with the water. This year some may actually make it to toad adulthood.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind having a few in the garden, but I don't want to be inundated. I spend way too much time rescuing the little buggars--sometimes several times a day. No one's drowning on my watch if I can help it, but I do have a book to write this summer.
Too bad this isn't 40 years ago, I'd hire myself out cheap. My grandmother had fish pools that would fill up with sex-crazed toads each spring. The racket every night would drive my grandparents mad. I thought it was cool because (1) I didn't have to try to sleep through the noise, and (2) I loved watching the polliwogs develop.
ReplyDeleteOne spring my grandmother couldn't take it any more and asked me to help her thin out the toad community. She brought out a huge bucket, and since she didn't like touching toads, she sat on the sidelines and pointed out any movement in and around the pools that I missed. Being very tall and gawky for my age, I must've looked like a human Great Blue Heron as I stalked those fish pools. When I was done, that huge pail was FULL of toads. We couldn't believe it.
My grandmother and I loaded the bucket into the truck and took it three miles out of town to the creek bank. They didn't show up in the following days, and I've often wondered about the noise level out on the Flat Branch that spring.