Turns out that we are not going to have rain for at least a week and that our little “pond” is losing water at an alarming rate in the heat, and DH is quite worried about there being enough water for our tadpoles.. so on sunday he..
“Dug two pits adjacent to the mud hole. Both have crap – wood and such – about a foot and a half down, so somebody must have gone to a lot of trouble to fill the area up at one point. Anyway, got down about two feet in both cases and then the shovel would hit the water table and whoosh – up comes the water, to the level of the pond.
Only linked the pond to one of the new pits, and only at the very top, due to the high sediment load in the pits. I’ll look at doing the other one tomorrow. The alternative is that I draw water from it and pour it in, rather than connecting it.”
That was the first plan, but after a little research, he figured out that the new water pits don’t have anything growing in them for the tadpoles to eat, so giving them water but not food is a problem..
So this morning, he had a talk with Farmer T and there is now a official tadpole rescue taking place tonight with nets and buckets and our tadpoles are being moved over into her big pond so that they have as good of chance as becoming adult frogs as we can make it.. I have asked for photos of the rescue and move..
I just love having my closest neabour be someone who thinks its awesome that we want to save the tadpoles, and is willing to come over and give a helping hand catching them for re-release.. I really do like where I live..
We will need to see if we can make our little pond a bit deeper and bigger so that perhaps this won’t be a issue next year..
Just another Day on the Farm 
This morning they were calling for rain in our area (yours too) -thunderstorms today, tomorrow, and maybe Wed……but with extreme heat and high humidity. Water evaporates very fast at that rate. As long as there is some water in the bottom (even in the muck), the tadpoles should do okay until the rains….. they do develop VERY fast and will be fine once they get some legs. It’s natural for there to be some losses unfortunately….
interesting, I was told maybe rain for the next couple days with high heat and humidity, he says that the pond is dropping daily, I said to move them to the horse trough ( we used to do that as kids) but he is in charge of the farm right now and this is the plan he has figured out, and I am just happy to have a man that cares enough about nature and critters to want to do something like this.
If you connect them, even at the top, using the shovel, will not the food also drift over? Wont they be able to swim from one pond to the other?
I think you are right wildress, personally I think that if I was home, I would just bring some greens picked from my garden/wild area’s each day and put them into the new holes personally, plus I figure the tadpoles would figure out how to move the main pond to the new water pits fairly quickly as well but Dh is very worried that given the silt levels that the new pits will not have enough o2 in them, personally I think they would be fine but he has been reading about how many per liter and believes we just don’t have enough water for the number we have.. so raither then let nature take its course and have half or more die off, he is planning a move over to a larger pond.
If someone filled in the watering hole, perhaps they also plugged the springs that feed it? On the other hand, if it’s only a Vernal pond, then perhaps the water never did stay all summer?
You may also be worrying for nothing if, as you say, the water table remains at the same level in both holes. Food is also probably not an issue either as all that sediment is the basis of the food chain in your little biosphere; apparently tadpoles eat algae and this heat will definitely encourage algae growth. Here’s an excellent ident link from Trent University (Can you hear the pride? Not my alma mater, but definitely closest to home). http://www.trentu.ca/biology/berrill/IdentificationTable.htm
From info here, looks like you have American Toad tads in your pond. The little guys I’ve seen here are REALLY tiny when they head out of the water (like thumbnail size) so I’m not sure that moving them to a larger space is such a good idea. According to what I’ve read so far (http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.2307/1940841) seems to indicate a lower survival rate where there are more predators. Perhaps Momma Toad knows best?
If you go ahead with it, good luck with the Tad Rescue (and hoping you have loads that make it to maturity; )
There seems to be more and prolonged mating noise here this year too: perhaps because of the mild winter/extra early spring weather?
Thanks so much Deb, I have sent your message forward to DH, who is in agreement that it does appear they are toads, which have a much shorter growth time and we are looking a few different things at the moment in regards to keeping them in water but also in the smaller pond for safety.. will let everyone know what happens..