If you build it...
Go ahead, count em.
Florida is a wet place so when we comment or complain about the rain, it usually means there has been one extreme or the other.
This year, especially this Summer, constant almost daily rain here at PFHQ was the norm.
That actually IS the norm if those daily rains are the brief but possibly intense afternoon thunderstorms.
What was noticeable this year were full days of rain, one after another.
Painting, beach trips, and other dry weather events stayed on the "To Do" list.
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| The pond true edge is where the cypress trees are. At its fullest, it filled the area between the water in the foreground and the true edge.All the grass to the right was underwater...up into the trees. |
My real pond, not the plastic Amphibisauna pictured at the top of this post, ... my REAL pond lept up over the dock and crept into the surrounding forest.
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| If you were a frog and your froggy real estate agent showed you this ... and then said, "Oh croak by the croak way, there croak are no croak fish in this pond croak other than croak delicious mosquito fish minnows croak.", you would snap this deal up, jump on it, and hop to it before this perfect home slipped away. |
The pond reached levels I haven't seen since the awesome hurricane year of 2004 ... except none of that water was from a big event hurricane rain.
It was all from daily rains and it created an almost ideal situation for my amphibian friends.
Why?
Reason 1:
My pond is fishless except for a blue million Gambusia minnows (Mosquitofish) a perfect food for Bull, Leopard, and Pig Frogs.
Reason 2:
No predatory fish like Blue Gills and Largemouth Bass mean more tadpoles and frog adults survive to breed.
Reason 3:
The pond has substantial underwater vegetation and floating mats of the same. Perfect for hiding, resting, and ambushing insects and minnows.
Reason 4:
Shade.
Ultraviolet radiation is rough on all of us, but especially amphibians. Almost the entire edge of the pond is shaded by cypress, willow, and buttonbush.
On top of this, the overflow portion of the pond has crept into the surrounding forest creating a perfect wet shady amphibinirvana situation. They moved into the forest edge as soon as it flooded.
So why, with all this perfect habitat, why is the tiny 3 foot wide pond in the first picture jammed up with young bullfrogs?
I don't know for sure, but I love it.
The purpose of that pond is to catch rain from the roof valley above and then send overflow through a LONG black drain pipe to the pond.
It is stocked with mosquito fish and functions as a mosquito deathtrap as female mosquitoes unwittingly lay their eggs into water filled with willing and voracious larvae eating gambusia.
It is 100 feet from the real pond, so I do find it funny to see so many REAL frogs hanging out there.
Just a gift I suppose, from the perfect frog summer.
2 comments:
What a fine thing to have a froggy summer. Makes me want a pond even more!
Funny thing, we had polliwogs in small pools of water along Lake Michigan this summer! I see them in the Cedar swamps but not out in the open along the sandy beach! Go figure!
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