Calvin studies the tadpoles in the pond before wielding his net.
Inspired by a recent visit to our local community garden, Calvin and I hatched a plan: Project Pollywiggle. The name, entirely his idea, inspired by the song:
“Hey pollywiggle and hey pollywog,
One of these days I’ll be a frog,
I’ll kick my legs and swim around,
With never a splash and never a sound!”
We prepped the week before, with a visit to the pet shop to buy a tank, a net, water treating solution, floating plants and tadpole food. That lead to all kinds of discussions about chemicals and what they’re doing in our water, and whether we needed to treat our water too.
Add a few books like the Teeny Weeny Tadpole and Tale of a tadpole and we were off to a great start.
This weekend the family was out in force: C on his new bicycle; Jay on foot shooting footage and me on my scooter. We headed off to the pond and, braving swarming mosquitoes — who devoured me despite us all making use of the same repellant — and plant growth that enhanced the adventure.
The tadpoles were delighted to discover their food.
We spotted loads of tadpoles, some swimming, some snoozing and other suctioned on to the bottom of the pond. Netting them was not as easy as you’d imagine, so we tag teamed and scooped up four little chaps to join us in their journey to frogdom.
So far, so good. In this urban game capture exercise, all four were safely transported to their new enclosure and released. They seem to be making themselves at home, if the volume of pollywiggle poop is anything to go by! (Next purchase is going to be a filter, as keeping the water clean is not as simple as some frog-raising websites would have you believe!)
Ultimately, when these four reach their frogdom, they’ll be released back into their natural habitat. But for now, we’re checking on them eagerly and documenting their progress for eventual production of a book.
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