Life is hopping with a frog pond

Henry David Thoreau would not have sought out my pond for inspiration for his “Walden” book and a philosophical life-experience where he could retreat from the world for two years, two months and two days. On the other hand, for a person with less lofty standards the frog pond foots the bill.

Murky, mud-bottomed and sometimes algae-covered, it isn’t much of a pond, even in wet years, and in dry years it’s just a dusty depression. The frog pond is a remnant, no doubt, of a bygone era when my property was a railroad siding where steam-powered, rail-mounted backhoes mined away hills of gravel, changing the water drainage, leaving this unassuming, gumbo-lined dent that collects run-off, attracts a wealth of life and brings me frogs.

Not that I am particularly gaga over frogs. I don’t seek them out or sit out in the yard in a bog-themed blind, secretly studying their ways, and I don’t catch them and eat their tiny little hopper legs or dissect them or use them for mad-cap experiments either.

I like the raucous sound of them in late spring after they’ve emerged from their wintry hidey holes, stretched, yawned and woke up enough to say “hey, I wanna mate,” and the loud croaking from their little bodies echoes up and down the coulee at night, keeping me awake to hear their obnoxious song of passion. It’s ribbeting.

Wet years, like this one turned out to be, I have enough water in the frog pond to get tadpoles, and then the fun really begins.

The robins, killdeer, cow birds and starlings lurk around the muddy edges waiting to snag a tadpole treat and maybe dine on some bugs while they’re there. A pair of mallards frequently stops by to lounge a while in my tadpole mud hole. Frequently, deer tracks have trampled the bird footprints.

The mosquitoes, of course, love the frog pond, and I like the idea that both predator (the frogs) and prey (the skeeters) are growing in the same body of water — an efficient use of resources.

That said, I toss out larvicide pellets to obliterate the nasty biters. I almost feel guilty about that, especially after it occurred to me that this little bog hole probably lures the skeeters in, thinking they’ll have this awesome place to lay eggs — not counting on the powerful destructive force of me. Then I remember that biting, blood-sucking, itchy-welt-leaving mosquitoes are thriving by the swarm-fulls in my pasture, and I don’t feel so bad.

But the pond is also the favorite watering hole of other insects. Yes, they include nasty flies and gnats but then so much more, too. We have a wide variety of benign fliers: dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies and some little bronze-shelled fly-like thing, at least three types of swimmers that I haven’t gotten to know as well as I should, and the bees — mostly honey bees imported every spring by the bee man, but other wild and free-range bumblers that buzz in for a refreshing slurp of fermenting swill. It must be tastier than it looks.

And all the bugs attract a wealth of bug eaters: phoebes that must be the sweetest-toned acrobats to ever flit after a bug and swallows that swoop in like a squadron of war pilots engaging in air-to-air combat as they scoop bugs by the mouthful out of midair.

This year has been a banner year for tadpole watching. I have the usual little guys that will grow to be chorus frogs — and that’s their name, not just their avocation. But I also have larger tadpoles that are from colorful leopard frogs or those creepy, pale plains spadefoot frogs, or maybe both, since I’ve seen both on the property this summer.

And just when I think the water will dry up too much and the tadpoles will live only long enough to be bird feed and not full-fledged croaking froggers, along comes a rain storm to refresh the pond water, just enough.

I saw this week that many tadpoles had reached that in-between stage where they sport both a tail and legs, like their own version of those awkward teen years. I suspect that many of them have left the water by now, sneaking past the birds at night.

Though I covet my sleep, I look forward to being kept awake by them next year as they converge again with the other critters and crawlers at my frog pond.

(It ain't easy being me at [email protected].)