It was somewhat expected that since the pond has been built that much excitement and attention has been directed to it. Both human and animal. And so it has. Some of it is due to the fact that there is so much action going on out there. Especially at night! But this morning was just amazing.So many wonderful and entertaining things squeezed into just a few minutes!
First it started off calmly with a little cricket frog catching the morning rays.
In case you can’t spot him in his clever camouflage, here is a close up view. Cute little fella isn’t he? So…diminutive…. But, what he lacks for in size he certainly makes up for in sound! Holy cow – it is loud.
You see the cool thing about cricket frogs is that you can get them to call by clicking two little rocks together. He will turn himself into the direction where the sound is coming from and start clicking right back at you. LOUDLY. I feel somewhat guilty getting him so fired up about a possible rival in the pond. But not enough to stop doing it. 🙂
Here’s one of his cricket frog pond mates sitting on a water poppy.
Next up we have a waterlily that is reaching for the sun too. Each blossom will open for the day and close at sunset. This one will be opening her petals to the sun for the very first time. You can almost feel the anticipation of it.
Looks like an alien bird up close:
This is what it eventually will look like: Wow!
But I must say, the dragon flies were my favorite today. They were simply huge and their colors were dazzling. Some were orange, others were green, and one was even purple. Truly the jewels of the sky.
Anyway, they were busy helping stock my pond along with all the frogs. Life has certainly increased around here.
Here’s one laying it’s eggs. They’ll land on some foliage, or stay airborne (dragonflies are superb aviators) and dip their tails into the water and deposit tiny little white eggs.
On this morning, only a short distance away, the leopard frog was eagerly awaiting it’s next meal, hoping this dragonfly would land near him. So cleverly camouflaged in some Parrot’s Feather.
Finally she came very close to him ready to lay her eggs, and though sadly I did not get the shot, he jumped up at her! But …. she spotted him and quickly flitted off. You could almost hear the “gosh darnit – so close!” coming out of the frog’s mouth.
What surprised me the most is that very shortly thereafter, she came back at him! I thought for sure I was going to see a dragonfly breakfast for the lucky frog but instead she started to beat her wings at him, dipping down to him and hitting him in the face! I was stunned. It did really not faze him too much, and he still tried to reach for her, but she was just too fast for him. It’s almost as if she was saying: “I see you there Bucko and get your butt out .. of…there!”. He did not move and she finally moved on and he was left waiting for his next meal.
And that so far, is life on a pond. Not bad for only having a pond for 2 weeks. Whew!
