The native chorus frogs have bred again for the fourth year in my backyard ponds in Northwest Oregon. Hundreds of tadpoles have hatched.
The red fang of life visited, however. A bullfrog invaded the chorus frogs’ breeding pond for two weeks, and wiped out about 15 chorus frogs who were attempting to mate. That pond used to ring with frogs’ mating calls, now it sits quiet, its lily stems casting a haunting crimson upon the water.
So these tadpoles not longer have daddies or mommies.
Some chorus frogs survived longer in the other ponds, but I didn’t hear them last night, so they are gone also.
But they left thousands of egg sacs behind before the bullfrogs got to them, and now hundreds of tadpoles emerge to carry on this suburban subset of chorus frogs.
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