Saturday, September 25, 2010

Konrad the Frog Appears

We have a small pond in our garden that is home to a number of goldfish, a few small koi and a voracious catfish. For the first few years after we moved into our house we also had frogs. The frogs were naturally occurring. I don't know how they found our pond in a walled garden in the center of Old Town, but they did. However, several years ago all the frogs disappeared and we have been trying to get them reestablished. We have probably put 25 tadpoles in the pond in the last four years and I don't know if we have had any frogs. I suspect the catfish may be partly to blame. This year in addition to half a dozen small tadpoles from the fish store (all gone as far as I can tell) we inherited a partially transformed tadpole from a friend. That tadpole was already named Konrad, and Cathleen believes it is the one that turned into the frog pictured here. This is a small frog, but it looks healthy and is quick. I hope it survives the winter and maybe next year we can find it a companion.

Via iPad

Posted via email from Bill's Photos & Miscellany

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Konrad is named for Konrad Zacharias Lorentz, an Austrian zoologist and animal psychologist. Konrad came to us from the Lorentz family (pretty sure the connection is only coincidental) as the sole survivor of a high school science project. I hope some of our other tadpoles complete their metamorphosis so he isn't lonely.

N. Lorentz said...

Long live Konrad!!! Three cheers to the Phelps family for giving him a chance to frolic amongst the lily pads!