{"id":1098,"date":"2008-03-29T23:03:53","date_gmt":"2008-03-29T23:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1098"},"modified":"2013-11-22T20:22:45","modified_gmt":"2013-11-22T20:22:45","slug":"the-complete-tadpole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/the-complete-tadpole\/","title":{"rendered":"The complete tadpole"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

It's now four weeks<\/a> since the frog spawn appeared in the garden pond, a month that has seen everything from warm sunshine to snow and hail, with a minor freeze covering the pond surface with ice in the middle of all that. We've had more rain today, but I'm happy to report that the tadpoles don't mind a bit and were out enjoying their relative freedom now they're fully hatched.<\/p>\n

Today's tadpole<\/span><\/p>\n

It's been fascinating to watch them develop from the early cell division. I was surprised to discover that they sport gills (though these will be re-absorbed over the coming weeks) which can sometimes cause confusion with young newts<\/a>. At their current stage the eyes are still developing, but are now visible. They also have gaping mouths. I've put together a fairly complete sequence of photos showing all the stages thus far: Frog Spawn Development<\/a><\/p>\n

Other garden news is the re-appearance of the greenfinches. They are probably the greediest of the garden visitors and are particularly partial to the seed feeder (much to the relief of the peanut-loving wood mouse).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

But no news of the foxes. I'm not too surprised that the old dog fox has disappeared. He's prone to vanishing around this time of year, but I am surprised not to have had even a glimpse of any of the others. The weather may have something to do with it, or they may have moved slightly further away. There are small signs though, including the distinctive scent they leave in the garden. So I keep watching, and waiting. And raiding the archive to find new pictures for the Fox of the Day<\/a> series which now features more than 1000 photos :faint:<\/p>\n

Camera note: tadpole taken with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro + full set of extension tubes and ring-flash; the greenfinches were photographed with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS + 1.4 teleconverter.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[980,278],"tags":[33,1128,200],"class_list":["post-1098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","category-tadpole","tag-birds","tag-fox","tag-tadpoles","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}