Tag: Common Frog

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future

David M14 Comments

This is my contribution to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future.

The prompt got me thinking about some of the natural history subjects I have photographed over the years. Butterfly eggs that will hatch into caterpillars that in the future will pupate and emerge as a butterfly for example.

After coming up with quite a few different life cycles I remembered my photos of the various stages in the development of a Common Frog (Rana temporaria). Some of them were published in a school textbook to illustrate the life cycle.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future

Multiple clumps of Common Frog spawn forms a large mass in a garden pond in Cheshire, England.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future

After a while the eggs in the spawn hatch into tiny tadpoles a few millimetres long. Here, three tadpoles are clustered together on an egg.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future

Over the following weeks the tadpoles grow enormously, this individual is now around 30 millimetres long. It won’t be long before this tadpole starts to develop legs.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future

After a while the tadpoles develop legs, their tails shrink and they emerge from the water as tiny froglets.

 

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Future

An adult Common Frog at the side of the garden pond where I photographed the frog spawn and this story started.

 

I skipped a few photos in an attempt to keep the post short.

 

Tuesday Photo Challenge – Common

David M5 Comments

This is my contribution to the Tuesday Photo Challenge – Common.

My first thought was of the various species of flora and fauna with Common in their common English names.

A female Common Merganser with young on Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada.

Ducks in a row.

 

A Common Frog in a garden pond in Cheshire, England.

Eye of the frog.

 

A pair of Common Tern mating on a boulder in Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada.

mating Common Terns

 

A male Common Kingfisher photographed in Cheshire, England.

Tuesday Photo Challenge: Back Catalog

Cee’s B & W Photo Challenge: Candid Photography (human or animal).

David M2 Comments

This is my contribution to Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Candid Photography (human or animal).

I had a few human photo ideas for the challenge before thinking of some of the photos of Common Frogs taken in Cheshire in the 1980s. They got so used to me being around the garden pond that they would ignore me.

Common Frog in monochrome.

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Up close and personal

David M8 Comments

This is my contribution to the Cosmic Photo Challenge: Up close and personal.

I had a few ideas for the challenge and had decided on one until I started selecting photos. After picking the first shot I was planning on using I went in a different direction.

Here are three up close and personal shots of nature subjects taken in Cheshire, England in the 1980s. In one of those strange coincidences, after picking them I realised that they all had Common in their common English names.

First, a bird. A portrait of a male Common Blackbird. I had been photographing a plant species in a ditch when this male decided to check out what the human was up to. As I’m in a ditch the bird is looking down at me.

Portrait of a male Common Blackbird.

 

Second, an insect. A portrait of a Common Quaker Moth taken with a high magnification macro lens.

Portrait of a Common Quaker Moth.

 

Third, an amphibian. A close up of a Common Frog in a garden pond in Cheshire, England. Most of the frogs eye is below the surface of the water. Taken with a high magnification macro lens and possibly one of the occasions when the camera body and/or lens ended up being dipped in the water.

Intimate portrait of a Common Frog.

Smiles, grins, laughs

David M10 Comments

My contribution to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Smiles and the A Photo a Week Challenge: Smile.

I know that I’m not supposed to anthropomorphize wildlife but I thought this could be a light hearted post with a bit of anthropomorphizing.

An American Red Squirrel with a hint of a smile. Ontario, Canada.

Eyeing up the photographer.

A relaxed Dunnock grinning while sunbathing. Cheshire, England.

Sunbathing Dunnock.

A wet Racoon grins as it surveys the bird feeders, Ontario, Canada.

Raccoon with spiky wet fur.

A Common Frog grins in a garden pond, Cheshire, England.

Eye of the frog.

A portrait of a Mourning Dove that gives the impression of smiling. Ontario, Canada.

Portrait of a Mourning Dove.

A hidden Great Blue Heron laughing at a No Fishing Sign, Ontario, Canada.

No Fishing Sign.

A Pine Siskin that appears to be laughing. Ontario, Canada.

A spring Pine Siskin

 

Eye of Frog

David M10 Comments

I know that the title sounds like part of a recipe being prepared in a cauldron to put a spell on someone but the latest Wits End Weekly Photo Challenge is Eyes so the title was to hard to resist.

A Common Frog (Rana temporaria) hiding in the pondweed in a garden pond in Cheshire, England.

Eye of the frog.