By Nancy Burnett
California is leaping for joy with all the water we received this winter. Our ponds are full of water just waiting for our amphibian friends.
I love visiting my favorite ponds to see what’s going on. In March the Western toads were already gathering. We could hardly drive at night there were so many crossing the road heading to the water.
The pond was already full of Newts, the male holding tight to the female- and, they can always regenerate new arms to hold her by.
I didn’t see many Newt eggs yet, but one pond had strings of toad eggs. In a few weeks the tadpoles will be cruising along the edge in a formation like an LA freeway. Both the toads and the newts spend the rest of the year in the woods hanging out in moist places-- under logs in the shade of oak trees. The Newts can travel miles to reach the same pond where they hatched. It’s one of the many wonders of nature that I love.
