Back again: Frogs at the pond

Wow, I haven't posted anything for over 10 months.

This year has been a good year for frogs. The highlights are gray tree frogs and leopard frogs.

The tree frogs were seen on and around the house. One was sitting on a shrub rose branch by the house in the daytime, completely motionless, several were seen hopping across our windows at night and one even hopped through an open window into the kid's room where it then sat on the bed frame. My daughter Sabine only noticed it when it moved after she had gone to bed. We put it gently outside (after all the room is on the 1st floor) and closed the window so it would go about its hunting on the house wall again.

The leopard frogs were a bit of a pleasant surprise. We saw one in a nearby pond -- it's an artificial pond excavated a few years ago on a neighbour's property -- in 2005 but couldn't find it again last year. This year there are quite a few of them in the pond -- even small ones, so they've bred successfully. There's one thing that is odd about the leopard frogs. Unlike the green frogs in the same pond, the leopard frogs won't necessarily jump into the water but some will leap in great bounds into the nearby tall grass. They are just as hard to find there as when they dive.

I'll have to get some pictures to post.

I am worried about the pond, though. It has been a very dry summer and the water level has dropped by a meter or so. I doubt that there is any spot that is more than 50 cm deep by now. I hope it doesn't dry all out.