Diary: June 2003

After last week's blue damselfly, today we had a visit from a red damselfly (more properly called a large red damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula).

Not a pair this time, but a single animal flying over and around the pond, occasionally alighting on a piece of floating wood which I was using to remove some duckweed. At one point I thought I glimpsed it laying eggs on vegetation just under the surface of the water, but I cannot be sure.

Noticed today a number of tadpoles with well developed back legs. As they start to develop legs, the tadpoles actually lose some of their body bulk; becoming smaller as their body tissue is redeployed. It must be an energetically expensive process. We rescued a fairly young frog from our cat today. We were alerted to its predicament by its screams - frogs can make a pretty loud, fairly high pitched, noise when aggravated by a cat. I don't think the cat kills frogs anymore - presumably they must taste foul.