Tadpole Story 3: Adorable Froglets!

The night I brought the tadpoles in and put them in deep cool rainwater from my rainbarrel, I slept better than I had in weeks. Who lies awake at night worrying about a couple hundred tadpoles? Me, apparently. I mean, that wasn't all I was worrying about. I've been worrying about what is going to happen if it never rains again this summer. Every single time a storm line would form, it would dry up and dissipate before it hit us. Every time. Week after week, the storms would form, they'd predict rain, and it would not happen. I realized that, with the land so parched and dry, there was no moisture to give any feedback to the clouds. So when a storm front hits this tinder-dry air, it simply dries up. Even Hurricane Debby split, and part swung west and north of us, and part swung east, and we got not a drop from her. Brother Bob, who'd been just as parched in Virginia, got five inches. I was glad for him. 

It feels very strange to wish for another hurricane, as destructive as they are, but I find myself wishing for a hurricane. 

The next morning I got up, looked in the pools, and there, like a benediction, were two froglets poised on the leaves of the floating heart I'd put in there, hoping. Hoping someone would emerge, someday. I couldn't believe my eyes. 16 August 2024:

They were too small and delicate to be gray tree frogs. My friend Laura helped me key them out--it seemed that most of the tadpoles I had were mountain chorus frogs! This is a regional specialty with a rasping, harsh comb-tooth call. For breeding, they zero in on the saddest, most ephemeral mudpuddles and ditches you could imagine. I don't understand how they even exist on this dry old ridge, but they're out there every spring, shouting from the mudpuddles.

Here is a mountain chorus frog tadpole. Note how the tail fin is the same size on either side, not high, wide or crested, and the tail is lightly marked. 

I really studied these little things, trying to figure out what they were. The mottling on the back looks pretty random. They don't have a well-defined cross like Hyla crucifer, the spring peeper. 

This one comes as close to showing a cross on its back as any, but it's not strong enough for  me to say it's a spring peeper. So I'm settling on mountain chorus frog. I can tell you that after a tadpole crawls out and becomes a frog, it sits there for about 24 hours just absorbing its tail before it makes a move.

Three out of 170. I wondered how long this would take, or if any more would change into frogs.

19 August, and the tadpoles are happily eating Tetra pond stix. I'm doing daily water changes, still so leery of losing them to overcrowding and foul water. I watch them like a hawk.

The more I look at them, the more I notice differences. I think this one is a gray treefrog tadpole. Its tail fin is wide and has markings on it, and it also tapers to a pin-like point with no vane around it. 

Laura helps me by sending photos from her reference book on frogs and tadpoles of Ohio. 

Mountain chorus frog is D, with the even vanes on its tail. 

Gray tree frog is E, with the needle-tipped tail and wide well-marked tail fins.

I wanted more information, so I went back into my archives from 2010 and 2011 and 2014, when I successfully raised gray tree frog tadpoles, to look at some of those photos. (They're on the blog, too!)

These are rock-solid gray tree frog tadpoles. Look at the topmost one, showing that well marked pin-tipped tail. I knew what they were because I raised them from a flat egg mat I had gotten out of my fishpond, knowing that the fish would eat the tadpoles as they emerged. 

The top left tadpole shows the gray treefrog form well. 

When they metamorphosed, they looked like tree frogs. Bulkier, bigger, with big feet and legs and toe pads.

Baby gray tree frogs are something really special.

I'd been pretty sure all along that the 2024 puddle hosted more than one species. It seemed the mountain chorus frogs were metamorphosing first, though. 

Next: Where Will They Go? 

Tadpole Story 2: Down in the Muck

 We’re back at the tadpole puddle in my driveway, chronicling my effort to keep it going through a drought now labeled as “Extreme,” and headed for “Exceptional.”  If you want to know how it's going, it's not going well. It's in the upper 90's all this week; trees are dropping their leaves like crazy, and I am disconsolate. Writing and posting this has helped somewhat. We here in Washington Co. Ohio are extremely apprehensive of the Labor Day weekend coming up. Campfires. Fireworks. The slightest spark could ignite our world. Don't do it. Please.

4 July 24. A tiny shower bolstered the pool. By now I'd added leafy branches atop the wire baskets. The heat was absolutely brutal, and the tadpoles badly needed shade. These little leafy huts seemed to do the trick. 

By July 9, it was taking 40 gallons of water at a time to keep the puddle filled. The heat was unreal.

The glug of jugs: very satisfying. But the work of hauling and hoisting 320 pounds of water each time they needed replenishing had gotten old fast. I didn't even want to think about what all that water was costing. We're on city water out here. I could never have done this on well water. My July bill very nearly doubled June's bill, but I clenched my teeth and continued on my fool’s errand. 

August 9. At this point it was all I could do to keep up with the heat. The puddle would draw down to dangerously low levels, and I'd haul another 40 gallons every three days or so. Discouraging. The tadpoles were showing no signs of metamorphosing. I couldn't figure out what was going on. What natural puddle on the planet would still exist by now? I'd been helping these tadpoles out since the third week of May! 

Only three days later, on August 12, I was finally ready to throw in the towel. In this video, I find deer tracks and realize that I will never be able to keep up with the herd of whitetails that had found this magic puddle and were drinking it down every damn night. I knew I couldn't sustain this effort much longer. I was thoroughly sick of worrying about the tadpoles. If there's one thing I know about myself, it is that, once committed to something, I will go down with the ship, chained to the mizzen mast. 

August 15, and the 40 gallons are completely gone only four days later. The drought is so severe that any water source is being swarmed by yellowjackets. I cannot tell you what hell it is to live in a place that has been completely taken over by swarms of yellowjackets. 

Even worse is to have to scoop tadpoles out of a muddy hole while yellowjackets by the hundreds buzz in your ears and land on your arms and back. But the time had come to get them the hell out of this puddle and try something else. By replenishing the puddle again and again I was the picture of Einstein's definition of insanity, which is

Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.

When I scooped them out of the mudbath, counting as I put them into fresh cool water, there were an astounding 170 tadpoles, far, far more than the few dozen I thought were still there. So much for the people who darkly predicted that using hose water would kill them. Yeah, I got a little sloppy after a couple months of this. I didn’t have any other water to use. 

Very reluctant to take them in, and not wanting to repeat the overcrowded toad debacle, I divided them into three tubs with about 60 tadpoles in each one. I bought tadpole pellets at the local pet store, and also fed them floating Pond Stix for goldfish. Though I was delighted to find them, I didn't like the tadpole pellets because they sank instantly and I could never tell if they got eaten or not. Tetra Pond Stix are a nice orange color, and they float until they're completely devoured, so it's easy to tell if you're overfeeding. Thumbs up on those! They raised some fine gray tree frogs for me years ago.

If they all changed, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all those frogs, but I wanted to see if they would metamorphose if they were unstressed, had ample food, and cool, deeper water. 

Next: A Surprise in the Morning

Tadpole Story 1: A Drama in Four Pieces

                                               

If you were a frog or toad on Indigo Hill in southeast Ohio on April 4, 2024, the world was your oyster. Anything seemed possible. 

It seemed like all the water you'd ever need had fallen from the skies. 

This enormous puddle filled up with American toad eggs and tadpoles. When it dried up in early May, I saved several hundred tadpoles. I tried briefly to raise them in two containers, but the tubs were overcrowded and one morning the tadpoles began to die off. I loaded a couple hundred into a pail of fresh rainbarrel water, cared for them until they revived, and took them to a ditch down in Stark Hollow, where they successfully turned into toads. I'm happy about that. 

But I was chastened by the die-off, and leery of trying to raise any more tadpoles.

By mid May, it was still raining from time to time, and another puddle formed. The frogs hurried to lay their eggs again. Oh man. Tadpoles again. I knew I didn't want to take them in and risk killing them. So I made a fateful decision to try to keep the puddle filled until they changed into frogs, and marked it with a pylon on May 21 so the delivery trucks wouldn't drive through it. 

Crows keyed into the puddle and the family of five that nested in my north border came each morning to walk, hunt and stab. The tadpole numbers dwindled. I found the crow tracks and put two and two together.

 Adapting as always, I improvised some tadpole shelters from a couple of wire baskets, weighted with bricks. The tadpoles took to them immediately. It was the only place they had to go where the crows couldn't get them. Tadpoles aren't dumb. See the wad of tadpoles in this one? 

Still going strong on 11 June. Periodic rains got farther apart, but the puddle persisted. I was happy to give my driveway over to such a collection of tadpoles. All the delivery people knew about it, and nobody ever drove through it.

By 16 June, the periodic rains had stopped. Water hauling began. Here, we've just refilled the puddle with the help of Oscar, Phoebe and my brother Bob, visiting from Virginia. 

We got a shower on 24 June, only a quarter inch, but it gave me a brief respite from water hauling. 

A female box turtle took up residence in another small shaded puddle in the driveway, staying there continuously for almost a month. She was trying to stay hydrated, hoping to be able to lay her eggs. It would be the worst turtle nesting season in memory. The ground was hard as a rock, but the female turtles had to dig their nests anyway.  Because there was no rain, I couldn't go out to look for the females when they'd normally be digging, right after a heavy rain. So I couldn't find their nests, to cage them against predators. 

Every single nest laid was predated, probably by skunks and raccoons, as soon as it was dug.

The eggs would have cooked and dried up in this ghastly summer, anyway.

Driveway Turtle got her own pylon. Nobody ran over her. I couldn't believe some predator didn't pick her off; she was there day and night. Seemed perfectly healthy, bright eyed and heavy, but tied to her puddle. She finally left when the puddle dried up in July. Phoebe found her about a half mile away on August 4. It was so good to see her again!  Correction: Phoebe informs me that CURTIS found Driveway Turtle. "He went sniffing around in the ditch and when I went to look at what he had there she was!"

My hunch that she had been healthy was vindicated. She was bright eyed and heavy when Phoebe found her in August. Box turtles often sit in water when they're ailing. But these are exceptional times, so I cut her some slack. She wasn't broke, so I didn't try to fix her.

This is a Rather Large story and a huuuge post, so I'm splitting it into several pieces for your reading enjoyment. 

Next: The Heat Clamps Down