Tag: nature

Sometime in early May, we started hearing the throaty call of a toad in the evenings. It made such a racket that we could hear it over the television. Knowing it was likely in our fish pond, my son and I went out one night to have a look.

No wonder it’d been so loud.

Each night for about a week, they were there, having their own little pool party.

In early June, I spotted a toad emerging from the pond one morning. “Must have been a long night,” I said to it.

It gave me a side-eye and continued on with its walk of shame.

But a few days later, I realized what she’d (I now knew it had to be a she) been doing.

It seemed like a lot of eggs, but I thought there was no way they’d all survive–not with all the fat goldfish in our pond.

I was wrong.

Because soon enough, the pond was teeming with tiny, wriggly tadpoles. “What are we going to do with all these toads?” my husband asked.

“There’s no way they’ll all make it,” I said. “The birds will eat some of them.”

Wrong again. Every morning, I see them in their varying stages of transformation.

Until they hop out of the water, so tiny I sometimes mistake them for a bug.

I can’t help but think of evolution, when a prehistoric fish sprouted legs and crawled out of the primordial waters for the first time. It’s so primal.

It’s easy to forget about the wonder of nature. But part of the joy of having a certified Wildlife Habitat for a yard is seeing things like this. It is connecting with the life that is all around us–if we stop to look.