Toad 'Poles
Far too bright for a good picture today, but after a two week absence I returned to my newly discovered pond, only to find a seething mass of tadpoles!
These are Common Toad (Bufo bufo) tadpoles, (they're black rather than mottles brown)and amazingly uniform in size. They're distasteful to most creatures (like the adults), so clumping together (unlike frog tadpoles) provides a good defence.
There is also safety in numbers. I saw several 'poles being picked off by dragonfly larvae, and there were newts swimming straight through the clump, but the numbers taken were miniscule. I spent most of my lunch hour balanced precariously over the pond watching - back tomorrow for more me thinks!
