OHC – Spring Splendor

What I love about nature is that it always has the ability to surprise you and lead you down a different adventure trail that perhaps you had intended.

Barb’s OHC has some great topics for March. One of the topics is ‘Spring Splendor’. I had it all mapped out in my mind. We were going to take a walk to our closest country park, observing signs of new life and noticing all that indicated Spring was on it’s way. Then we were going to see what changes have occurred in the park – the last time we walked up there it was covered in snow, so changes were bound to be everywhere.

Of course these things we did see, but nature had some other treasure in store for us today. As we reached the park and passed by the little pond life reserve that is fenced off, we heard lots of croaking. The children ran to investigate and were delighted to find frogs, frogs and more frogs. They were mating and surrounded in spawn. What could be more Spring-ish than the early life cycles in action?

Well, we didn’t get any further along my ‘planned’ trail, as we were fascinated with watching this froggy drama. The girls collected a some spawn for us to take home – we plan on watching these little eggs grow and hatch, oh, and noting down all the changes in our journals of course. We have a little pond in our garden which the girls are keen to put our little frogs into one day. I think a pond project would be a great idea – create a little Eco-system and observe it all summer long.

I’d packed a little picnic for this walk, as the sun has been shining and we did not want to miss out on soaking up some precious vitamin D! So while we ate our sandwiches, we all sketched the frogs and their off-spring right there next to the pond.

Tori was getting frustrated with getting the frogs head ‘just right’ so settled for just drawing the spawn and reeds…

Jess went all out adding things to her entry that were not strictly happening or present right there and then -lol (like the frogs extended tongue and the already hatched tadpoles and a VERY happy sun! – don’t ask about the bubbles extending from the rear of the frog – I have NO idea -lol)

We prodded the spawn a bit and tried to scoop some up with our specimen jar. We were all quite surprised by how thick and jelly-ish the spawn actually is. It was not the easiest thing to just scoop up. It took a little manoeuvring I tell you!

I had taken a short little video of the frogs but am having an awful time trying to upload it to YouTube, so I will include a video I found on YouTube that is very similar to the sights and sounds we experienced this morning. I just love the low croaking coming from the frogs. Enjoy