Thread: How oldies entertain themselves

My wife and I (both in our 70s) have spent the later part of the afternoon sitting on deck chairs with our attention glued on the bath tub that doubles as a water lily pond in our back yard.
A little while back we noted some frogs eggs on the edge of the tub so we decided to let them be and see what happened. (I remember doing the same thing when I was about 10 or so.) These eggs have duly hatched into a myriad of tadpoles and over the past few days we have been witness to the evolution of these little critters into frogs.
For those of you who have never taken the time to watch Mother Nature at work, the tadpoles who normally swim around propelled by their catfish like broad tails tend to sprout minute legs after a while but still behave like tadpoles.
Then one day Nature calls, they say to themselves "There has to be more to life than this" and they crawl out of the water and sit on a lily pad for a couple of hours while the bulk of the flesh in their "tadpole tail" is absorbed by their now "Frog" body.
These little blokes are Green frogs (someone will probably name them more precisely I am sure) and the following shots detail a little of their evolution from Tadpoles to Frog.
Once they reach full frog status, they don't hang around but depart the area to face a daunting run (hop) to a sheltered area, dodging geckos, penny lizards, birds and what ever else likes Frog Legs.
Those that survive this perilous journey hide amongst greenery and in the water pipes so that they can be the first to let us know when it rains!

Just emerged.


Been out about half an hour


Been out a while now, the tail has almost completely disappeared, merely a pointy bump on the end of the body.


He/she left the pond about 15 minutes after this shot by jumping on to a green pot plant about a foot away from the tub.
And that just about covers our excitement for this day. See what you youngsters have to look forward to!
Regards
Glen

Originally Posted by Mudnut

I have recently set up our inflatable edge wading pool next to our car port. It already has tadpoles in it. Green tree frogs are what laid eggs that eventually turned into little hoppers about the size of my thumb nail. We love the calls of the frogs. I have set up the pool for the last two years. Unfortunately I think the biggest risk for the little frogs are Cane Toads, they will eat anything that moves. Last year we counted hundreds of little frogs, so trying to help the population.

Cheers for posting

Ken

I haven't seen green frogs around here for ages. We have cane toads, so you could be right. When we shifted the daughter into her new rental home at Gayndah, there in the bathroom, on the window sill were two large green tree frogs. A welcome sight. Bob