We are shocked and completely delighted to have glorious sunshine. Not only that, but the forecast is “fried eggs” all week. Yee haaa. We went on a long one today to blow out the cobwebs, celebrate DM’s start of half term (I don’t get a half term, we work through at Uni) and get a bit of much needed exercise.

After yesterday’s discovery, I decided that we should walk the path with the puddles where the silly frogs spawn in too-shallow water. They really are daft – in some puddles, there is so much spawn that even if they don’t dry out, there cannot possibly be enough food to support a fraction of the taddies. So, I am going to head back out tomorrow morning with my bags and do another rescue job.

It’s a bit of a dilemma because, as DM says, should I let Darwin’s rule play itself out? If the frogs are too stoooopid to spawn in places that can support their young, should we stop their lineages from dying? If we bring their spawn into our pond does that increase the stupidity level in our gene pool? Do we risk importing illness into our pond?

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions but I do know that the puddles on the path look like scenes from quatermass. The masses of spawn are almost climbing out of the water. We’ve also walked past bigger pools that look as though someone has been chucking in wallpaper paste, giving it all a big stir up and going away, so thick is the spawn.

We concluded that last year’s rescue probably didn’t save a species from extinction, but who knows. I think you’d have to be a really knowledgeable amphibian expert to be able to identify one species from another from the spawn.

Our frogs have a “pile it high, sell it cheap” attitude to reproduction. They make thousands of babies, each with almost no protection (intervention by BOBS excepted) and hope that some survive. Did you know though, that some species of frog only have a few babies and they carry them around under their skin until they are mature enough to have a good chance of survival? Some even lay their young in a pond, watch over them and when the resources in that pond are depleted they scoop them up in their mouths and take them to another pond with more resources. How cool is that?

Yahay - 72% readability - better than good! Grade score 8 - perfect! Beige score 7. It's all good.