Our Babies Are Growing... Legs!!

Life in the pond is going well. When we first met our little western toads (Bufo boreas), they were just mere masses of egg strings.

Then the hatching...

And now - metamorphosis!!!!

All of the eggs appeared to have been laid within a single 24 hour period, however, we've noticed that the tadpoles appear to mature at very different rates. Must be some evolutionary adaptation thing...


Here's one of our little critters, complete with back legs. (The focus is a little blurry because the camera seems to insist on focusing on the water surface... argh!)


The next step... front legs and development of air-breathing lungs! Here's a freshly-metamorphed toady, ready to face the big, big world. Pretty cute, huh? We've got these little hoppers all over our pond area now. Its so much fun to watch them roam the mud flats, eating insects I can barely even see.


I guess it might be appropriate to also show you a picture of our little pond. Vegetation from left to right: The light green shrub is coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis). We like this shrub a lot because it blooms in the fall, and so helps to provide year-round nectar for our local insects. Its a huge favorite of the butterflies, and we get an especially large number of Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui). The low green veg in the middle is Torrey rush (Juncus torreyi). The tall green veg is cattail (Typha latifolia). The cattail just appeared once the pond area became regularly innundated (all other plants were brought in as seeds or in containers). The large skeleton in front of the cattails are good 'ol sunflowers (Helianthus annua). The sunflowers started as seeds we would spread, but now they re-seed themselves each year. We enjoy the sunflowers because the birds appreciate them so much. We've had flocks of goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) come through and feed off of them in the fall. In the back, behind the bridge (the shiney white thingey) is deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens). It started as just a couple bunches, but the stuff has become a monster and is sprouting up all over our stream bed. Its all we can do to dig them up and replant them in more-desired locations.
And finally... I'll leave you with a second toad video, "Tadpoles in a Pond, II". You may notice that there is a tadpole in there with back legs. Very exciting stuff!!