Spring 2015. Common Toad Spawning Has Not Yet Begun...

March 27th was a surprisingly warm day. The forecast promised an approaching cold snap, but we decided we had to check if the common frogs were gathering for spawning or not yet. Coltsfoot had started to bloom: this is a marker of the spawning season.

But its flowers were still half-open... At the watering hole near Iskov Pond, there was a small lens of unmelted ice.

A little more, and the ice would disappear.

The main impression was how dry it was.

The pond was already very small and didn't even reach the old footbridges. Spawning would have to wait...

A joint council of three ornithologists identified this bird as a yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella).

And this is the next day.

A wave of cold, piercing wind arrived (and on the night of March 28th-29th, it snowed).

It's clear that there was no question of any frog spawning.

Before leaving, we took a short walk along the floodplain...

A very strange object is located in the forest to the left of the descent from the gazebo.

A sparse net was stretched slightly above the growth on the trees.

We couldn't figure out who did this or why. On the dirt road running along the floodplain, there was a crushed female common frog.

So they came out.

It was probably heading to one of the floodplain lakes, for example, the one shown in the next photograph.

But nothing was visible in the lakes yet. The grass had only just begun to turn green. The main color was yellow.

Only mistletoe was green with joy.

The water level in the river was surprisingly low.

It's hard to believe this is March!

I clearly remember how twenty years ago, in March, the entire floodplain was flooded, with only trees sticking out here and there. It's cold... Our house is clearly visible from the floodplain through the transparent forest.

In summer, only the glowing windows are visible at night.

How good it is that we propped up the veranda in the autumn... On the sand at the water's edge, there were mink tracks.

It's clear from the water that it's cold...

There was last year's duckweed on the floodplain lakes.

A dry fruit of Echinocystis...

The disaster of this time of year is fires.

"Our" bank had already mostly burned.

Here, last year's grass remained only where it was pressed into the wet soil by passing cars.

From the direction of Zadonyetskoye, fire was spreading across the floodplain.

Below the hill were blue "puddles" from wood anemones.

It looked like a hare, but the tracks were somehow small...

You know the classic photography genre: "photographer and model"?

You decide who is the photographer and who is the model here.

We saw one frog: it was a male esculentus that had overwintered somewhere on the slope and was slowly heading towards the water.

We saw it while it was trying to warm itself on the road.

We took pictures and let it go. Badger tracks.

I was teasing Anton that he was standing like a girl in the cold.

They wanted to support him...

At the biological station...

And again our house - from above And the spring-joyful colors of tits...