Rescue mission !

Yesterday while walking in "my" new woods I spied something unusual in a recently dried-up puddle.  Actually it wasn't ONE something.  There were a couple of somethings.  And the more I looked,  the more somethings I found.

Can you see them ?

Here's a closer look.

The somethings were Wood Frog egg masses.

I wondered why they were high and dry as egg masses can not survive outside of water. My best guess would be that this overly long Winter and late Spring put off the frogs' schedule, and the eggs were laid late and the pond dried up before the eggs had a chance to hatch and grow.

For once I was glad that some thoughtless person had dumped their junk in the woods, as I found a small plastic pail which I filled with water from a puddle ...

and  collected as many masses as I could and took them to a vernal pool in the woods.  I hope that that pool will be able to sustain them for the 6-8 weeks they need to hatch and turn from Tadpoles into Frogs.

Vernal pool in the woods

Today Kaitlyn and I headed back to see if we could find any more stranded egg masses that I'd missed, and to move other batches from a ditch that was close to drying up.

See all the floating masses ?

We gathered them all up and re-located them to the vernal pool

 But stopped for a quick photo op first.

We'll keep an eye on the vernal pool.  Not sure WHAT I'll do if it shows signs of drying up.  I'm hoping for some good Spring rains to keep it replenished.

And I WILL go back tomorrow just to make sure we didn't miss any.