One of the most humorously amazing things I ever witnessed was the height of the toad mating season at a local park. This park has a small pond, normally occupied by a limited population of frogs, a few turtles, the occasional nesting Canada Goose family, and about 14,000,000 dragonflies.(This is WONDERFUL, since in addition to flying capabilities that astound aeronautical engineers, dragonflies pretty well exist to eat mosquitos.) The boardwalk that approaches the pond is called the "Frog Talk Walk" because of the spring peepers. ("
RIBBIT! ")
This one particular day, the pond was transformed. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of toads in it. One of the naturalists explained that this particular breed of toad was largely land-dwelling, but they reverted to water for mating. The males entered the pond and called to the females. That was what was going on - it was the Toad Singles Bar Wonderland. All these little toad-heads sticking out of the water, lustily calling. ("What's your sign? Come here often?") Meantime, the females were coming out of the woods in droves. I was talking to the naturalist while standing on the little path that borders the pond. The Toad Tide broke around us, and one particularly determined little toad hopped right across my foot (plop!) in her rush to reach the Toad Orgy.
It was amazing. A few days later, the pond was "toad" - ally back to normal.
Not the Apocalypse, just that amazing reproductive imperative.
Cheers,
Sharon
)
