Morph Complete

I suppose you cant have everything in life....which is a shame!

 I cant seem to find any tadpoles in the pond at all and havent seen any for a while...but then you cant have Dragonfly larvae and expect Frogs....its a fine balance I suppose, nature tends to get it right so im not going to interfere beyond taking a few Spawn out every year and putting little Frogs back and hope they make it....interfering with nature is the wrong thing to do and lets face it, humans have done enough without me sticking my oar in and unbalancing the pond....im guessing that some years will be larvae free so this will produce Frogs....with 4 Broad-bodied Chasers having left the pond and somewhere in there lurk 2 Southern(?) Hawkers which will depart in July....im not complaining at all....

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of some Frogs and some Spawn....

....so we kept a few Spawn aside in a glass vase for our little boy to watch morph slowly in to mini Frogs....its amazing how, as a kid, I used to do this and it didnt seem to take too long to achieve....though as an adult, and the first time I have done this since being a kid, it seemed to take ages....anyway....legs and arms appeared....

...this was very exciting progress, though the others in the vase are making progress at varying rates....

...and his tail started to disappear....

...within a day or so of that happening the little hopper was climbing the walls....of the vase....he regularly appeared at the top edge....

...here he is sitting on my hand just before release back to the pond....isnt he, or she, fabulous!!

...and here it is, my four year old son slipped him back in to the water...with a snail for company he sat on the edge...

This has got to be the most satisfying part of the 'job' of looking after nature, putting it back, setting it free and on its way.  I used to work in wildlife rehabilitation and the best bit was always letting the animals return to the wild.  Sometimes it would be a Woodpigeon but other times it would be something much more majestic...a Hobby or a Buzzard...but it all counted and it all needs to go back to fulfill its place...

Ive got four more tadpoles, one is changing shape rapidly so will soon be a little Frog too I hope.  All I can do is put them back and give them a little chance...the rest is in the lap of...nature!

Meanwhile....the plants cometh....the Foxgloves have started blooming, much to the bees content...

Ive never looked that closely at them before either...they have rather strange yet fascinating patterns inside the bell shape flowers....

The Red Valarian is particularly vibrant red at the moment....

...I always find it rather strange they sell this in garden centres, not because i think its a weed of any sort, but its just so common, a real garden escapee...though of course brought over by the Romans probably on pieces of marble for carving in to fine statues...

The Azalea has been looking rather gaudy in the middle of the garden....but it really offers a brightness of orange that nothing else competes with at the moment....I rather like this...

...the second picture shows it in full bloom and about to 'go over'...however, this has not been helped at all by the strong north easterly and now south westerly winds of late...

....anybody else bothered by the strange weather we have had just lately....like the past couple of years...?