This past Sunday I had the supreme honor of taking a 5 year old on a tad-pole hunt. If you haven’t done this, give it a try (make sure the kid wants to go). I’ve read how everyday stress ages the human body in many measurable ways. I’m here to report that one antidote to this malady can be achieved by teaching a precocious 5 year old how to search for squiggling baby froggies in the muck of a fish pond.
‘Little 5,’ as I’ll refer to him, called me in the evening on his mom’s cell phone to let me know he wanted to raise a tad-pole…and he needed my assistance. Rarely do I get such important phone calls, so immediately we devised a tentative plan, got mom’s approval, and synchronized our watches.
Little 5 arrived at 9:30 am, via chauffeur, eager for adventure. I was a giddy go-getter who had been provisioning for our hunt since 7:30 am; had already made a trip to wal-mart for a dip-net (folks, this is why Wal-Mart is the rightful king of the evil empire: who else has dip-nets at 7:30 am on a Sunday?!!). In our white plastic five gallon bucket we carried the dip-net, a quart sized Mason jar, and an old gray towel (this could get dirty). Little 5 spotted my trusty binoculars on the kitchen table and said “Oh! we’ll need those to see real deep into the water.” I started to explain that those were more for looking up into trees and…but before I could finish, they were dangling around his neck, so I summed it up with a reassuring “Yes…we’ll need those too.”
We drove slowly down the gravel entrance to Occanneechi State Natural Area, and paused when we neared the ponds to get the first look at prime tad-pole habitat. I was relieved to see the ponds actually had water in them (I hadn’t exactly done all of my homework for this adventure, despite the previous late evening hike along the Eno river which turned up not one water-bound baby amphibian). Just last year the state had drained the ponds for a major renovation project. I had taken a gamble in hoping they had finished their project according to schedule (it is the state, you know). I had read that it would take awhile for the stocked fish population to reach the previous “keeper” size. Strangely the article hadn’t mentioned a thing about the projected size of the froggy population, but I had a hunch they would ‘rebound’ (ba-dump-tschhh) quickly.
While walking from the car to the ponds I realized I needed to refrain from slipping into Mr. Identifier mode…you know: “That’s a centipede; oh look, a cardinal; this here is the common milkweed plant which is the sole food source for the brilliant migratory monarch butterfly which stops here on its long journey from Canada to Mexico and while it rests here, it sometimes will…” I think I made a good decision. If he asked a question, I would answer.
The first pond, the largest one, was teeming with minnows. Little 5 asked “what’s a minnow?” Yay!, a question! So I told him that minnows are baby fish…like tad-poles are baby frogs…and they actually eat baby frogs…which is probably why he had trouble finding any baby frogs. So, for the first 15 minutes, Little 5 practiced catching minnows in the dip-net while I searched the far corners of the big pond for froglings…and found none. I realized I hadn’t thought of a plan B if we were unsuccessful with the amphibisearch. Maybe he could raise a minnow…maybe wal-mart would have tad-poles. Little 5 didn’t seem worried as he was happy to be exploring. Good kid. We headed down to the lower pond. Immediately, as we neared the tall grass, a chorus line of croakers launched themselves into the water. Little 5’s eyes got real big. I danced a quick little jig. But in order to get close to the water, we would have needed hip waders to get us in and a crane to get us out. While I began thinking of more plan B’s, Little 5 startled me with an enthusiastically squealed “Dragonfly!!” This kid was not going to let a dearth of legless kermits drag him down.
We made our way to the far side of the little pond where the ground was firm enough to allow your toes to rest at the edge of the water. Here too was a promising collection of pond scum. As we leaned over the water, being careful not to slip into the ooze, a tiny black dot wiggled up to the surface. TAD-POLE! Quickly we fumbled with the dip-net and scooped gently towards the wiggling dot…which wiggled right through the mesh and back down below the pond scum. We soon realized there were black dots all over this section of pond…and every one of them slid gracefully through the net and back to their original resting places. We spent several minutes devising very creative trapping schemes (I’ll let you use your imagination) before we decided to search the final, even murkier, corner of the pond. Maybe that is where the larger, teenage tadpoles hang out. And sure enough, there they were, bigger dots, just fat enough to hang suspended in the lacework of the 4 dollar dip-net.
Little 5 kept both hands tight around his mason jar. As we walked back, he held his new
friends up close to his face. He peered through his glasses into the jar of weeds and scum, and smiled blissfully. I did the same.
