bullfrogs

It seems that everywhere we went this month there were outdoor photo ops, one of which was this bullfrog basking in the morning sun while waiting for an easy meal.

This Circumpolar Bluet rested on shoreline vegetation long enough for its photo to be taken.    

Unlike its older and bolder counterpart, this young bullfrog remains mostly hidden, keeping only its head above the soggy vegetation. It's learned early on that it can be the hunter one second before becoming the hunted moments later.

Long-legged waders such as herons and egrets consider frogs choice morsels.

Frogs needn't worry about this fella. Strictly a herbivore, this young forkhorn will be shedding his velvet in the coming days.

Teasle highlighted by the sun, in the background a shaded brook covered with duck weed.

August provided us with a number of interesting cloud formations -- this one occurring in early evening.

Last week's full moon on the rise, climbing above the upper branches of our apple tree....

and several hours later its descent in the Southwestern sky.

It was three summers ago when I liberated a few dozen large tadpoles into the meadow stream pictured above. A stone's throw from where I took this photo is a narrow ditch that, when filled with water, empties into said stream. Well, on the day I'm speaking of, I saw a heron take flight from the ditch.

Because there was no water in the ditch at the time, I thought I'd investigate. Turns out there was a wee bit of water in the form of three small puddles. Several small surface boils indicated there was something living in the roiled water. Because the water was discolored, I assumed it was small fish in the puddles. The heron had been having itself a feast and judging from the tracks in the mud, so did the raccoons. We live not far from here so I went home and returned with a plastic five gallon pail.   

As I first mentioned, the puddle captives turned out to be tadpoles -- sort of. They were actually frogs with tails. And because they hadn't fully "morphed" into frogs, they were not ready to breathe on land. Thus they were confined to the small puddles and easy pickings for anything that found tadpoles tasty.   

As you can see, there is no shortage of either water or aquatic vegetation in the ditch this summer. When I first took these photos I gave no thought to that day three years ago

But take note of the bullfrog's position in successive photos. It had its back to me, then it seemed to turn for a sideways glance before fully turning in my direction. Maybe its me, but, I've read where it takes two to three years for bullfrogs to reach maturity.

Could this be one of the survivors of that hot summer day? And do bullfrogs remember? After all, by the time I took the last photo it did seem quite friendly...maybe even smiling a little!