Spring-2015. Common toad spawning and a few other things

Spring this year developed unusually. Even two weeks ago it was warm and primroses were in full bloom (well visible here). But tailless amphibians did not come out to spawn (they probably knew how it would end). It ended with sharp cooling, snow, and strong wind. But during three Easter holiday days there was sharp warming, sunny and truly hot weather. The next weekday brought gloomy skies, cold wind, and occasional drops... all the more valuable those three warm holiday days were. The wind during the cold spell felled many trees. On just a short road section along upper Iskov Pond, two trunks fell across the road over those two weeks. We tried to pull one aside to open passage... [IMG_1] ...but nothing good came of it. The fallen tree bent but neither turned nor broke. [IMG_2] We had to detach the cable and bypass the blocked section from above! [IMG_3] In any case, we arrived! And this is our first toad this year. A male waits for a female on the bottom along her probable route. [IMG_4] Algal films rise from the bottom. They remain where I or someone else has passed. Apparently oxygen bubbles accumulated in bright light, but to detach and rise they need an external disturbance... [IMG_5] On Saturday, April 11, spawning had only just begun. The overwhelming majority of pairs had not yet laid eggs. Note the reflection play from reed stems! [IMG_6] During these three warm days all reptiles and amphibians were active. We saw common toads, green frogs (both P. ridibundus and, somewhat less, P. esculentus), moor frogs, spadefoots, tree frogs, and heard fire-bellied toads. In active state... [IMG_7] [IMG_8] [IMG_9] [IMG_10] [IMG_11] [IMG_12] [IMG_13] [IMG_14] [IMG_15] [IMG_16] [IMG_17] [IMG_18] [IMG_19] [IMG_20] [IMG_21] [IMG_22] [IMG_23] [IMG_24] [IMG_25] [IMG_26] [IMG_27] [IMG_28] [IMG_29] [IMG_30] [IMG_31] [IMG_32] [IMG_33] [IMG_34] [IMG_35] [IMG_36] [IMG_37] [IMG_38] [IMG_39] [IMG_40] [IMG_41] [IMG_42] [IMG_43] [IMG_44] [IMG_45] [IMG_46] [IMG_47] [IMG_48] [IMG_49] [IMG_50] [IMG_51] [IMG_52] [IMG_53] [IMG_54] A grass snake. [IMG_55] [IMG_56] Dry grass and dry bones on the shore. [IMG_57] Damn grass burning! When I was returning from the pond to the station, a car drove by. No absolute certainty, but there is a high chance that many ignition spots of dry grass along dirt roads resulted from that trip. There were so many foci that fighting them alone made no sense. [IMG_58] Piles of earth thrown up by earthworms show that on the slope road, load on soil is distributed unevenly. [IMG_59] An unpleasant feeling — leaving the surroundings of a national park while doing nothing about grass burning. It seems the situation is this: first we must defeat burning in people’s heads, and only then extinguish it in the field. Right now it is simple: what is not burned today will be burned tomorrow. [IMG_60]