Beneath the surface....issues among tadpoles

Beneath the surface

a tadpole's life is not always a happy one....

latest Telling Toads contributions

Life in a toad pond or a frog pool is not always easy. Even getting there after a winter of deep dreams in a cold rocky hollow is fraught with peril (and if you humans would ike to help, look for a local
Toad Crossing team, or check out Froglife’s “Toads  on Roads” page). As tadpoles grow, in a warm wet summer, a pond may be a good place to be but if there is too muhc sun and too little rain and the water begins to go…..Natterjacks in their rainwater hollows on heaths and dunes aim to grow fast and start hopping soon: their water is supply is precarious. Our amphibians don’t have those magnificent African Bullfrogs Dads who guard their squirming tadpole swarms (they have even been known to make lions back off, more, i suspect, from confusion than from fear) and who will dig channels from a drying puddle of ‘poles into the deeper, if more precarious, waters of a bigger pool. Our amphibians have to sit there and sing for the rain....

And all that is a longer introduction to the next two Telling Toads contributions…..its summer, I hope you get a chance to sit around somewhere enjoying the season…why not put pen to paper, pencil to note or finger to keypad and send us your own toady contribution….don’t know where to start? See the suggestions that are coming in on the Whispers pages. To read more of our Telling Toads pieces simply search this blog for Telling Toads!

Toads 
Susannah Violette
All sizes they bloat their night-bodies.
With their bulimic tongues, belch
their language of tadpole begetting,
of water seeking,
of climbing damp belly
to warty back
and thrusting
whilst asking:
Is this our puddle?
Am I home yet?

999 Tadpoles
Rosemary McLeish
I can't tell you how awful it is in this pond.
It's a heaving, seething, struggling, lumpy
milk pudding of a mud-hole.
I am surrounded by brothers. 
All they do all day is push and shove, making
more room for themselves. I sit tight
in my tiny space ignoring their jostling.
I keep myself small.

Somebody prods us with a stick.
Alarm stirs the pool into a whirling chaos of
brothers fighting to get out.
A lot of casualties.
At least the gruel thins.

Some of the brothers are growing legs.
They're eating the little ones.
But there still isn't room enough and now
they can kick, not just squirm.
They leave me alone, I don't know why,
so I can swim around a little, stretch.
Some great bird swoops down every day,
scoops up a beakful of us -
you can see them kicking as he glugs them down his throat.
He never comes near me.

Now we're all getting bigger, some are taking off,
jumping out of the pond, disappearing into the long grass.
The water in the pond is clearing,
brightening.
I can tell apart the ones with boring brown blotches now,
some long and thin,
some chubby, some tough and mean,
some cheery and silly.
Still fighting from time to time.
Some days I think it must be the weather.

I begged them to stop but they cold-shouldered me,
preferring fights to rational discourse.
I asked why they didn't like me,
but they looked at me as if I'd crawled out from under a stone.
Once in a while they suspend hostilities, all join
together to raise their voices in harmony to greet the dawn.
It gets on my nerves.
I tried to join them but they don't want to hear
my rusty burping voice, say I can't sing their tune.

They've all gone now. Left me behind.
I've got the whole pond to myself..
Nobody croaking, nobody quarrelling.
I can swim from one end to the other
and across from side to side.

At first it was just what I'd wanted.
The space to breathe,
so still and quiet I could think my own thoughts.
As much food as I could eat.
But gradually I began to miss them.
All that pushing and shoving, something happening
all the time.
Now it's just me and the pond and the weather,
it gets very boring. I'm lonely.
Wonder why they all left, why nobody ate me.
Wonder what's the matter with me.

The duckweed has been cleared,
so when the sun came out I saw myself reflected,
long and deep in the still water.
I looked over my shoulder,
nobody there but me.
No wonder they left me alone.
What a freak!
Yellow speckles, exopthalmic eyes, warty chin.
I should find a large broad leaf
to squat under.

I'm a toad, not a frog! 
But those are diamonds in my eyes.

Originally published in Artesian magazine in 2002, reprinted with poet’s permission

the perils of the deep

Thank you to today's poets, Susannah and Rosie and to Shaun Waters for the rising newt

Voices from a field

our solar system

 Rock-weigher, field-ruler

words from the Whispers 

"Whispers in the Grass"

9th July 2019

We started on a day that promised brightness and threatened rain, cooler than some this summerthe high dales of the Staffordshire Moorlands. This was a day for words, and wandering, and wondering, for drawing, scribbling, sketching and eating picnics and the partaking of cake. It was a day to simply enjoy being there, being here, in Dove Valley Centre in the Upper Dove ValleyWe started on a day that promised brightness and threatened rain, cooler than some this summer in  at the Dove Valley Centre in the Upper Dove Valley

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.

Haiku, by Mary King (BV)
1. Pink petals,
Drifting to earth,
Childhood gone.

2. Solid five bar gate,
Courage will open it up,
A haze of flowers.


Have a go yourself?
A quick haiku activity: go outside and sit down on the ground if you can. There, a) look at the sky above, b) touch the ground below, c) reflect on how these sensations make you feel. Turn those three thoughts into 3 lines. You mght use the syllable convention ( 5 syllables, 7 then 5 again) but you don’t have to! Go for short, clear images and hold onto room to breathe….(Looking up, reaching down are a good pair of sensations, you coud use others!)

Or maybe you fancy wrapping your vocabulary around a Kenning or two: sometimes riddles, sometimes praise-poems, sometimes just word-ripples of humour and imagery….These stem from Anglo-saxon tales and explore a person, object or even an idea through slightly sidelong descriptions

KENNINGS (answers at the foot of the page)
Rock-weigher,
Field-ruler,
Bone-layer,
Stone-shepherd

Vole-taker,
Cry-maker,
Dawn-waker,
Sky-straker

Soil-turner
Slow-learner,
Harvest-earner,
Each spring, returner
There are more to follow but I hope these leaves from our word-tree have entertained and that you will join us for some more whispers from the grass soon!


Thanks to all our visitors on the Whispers in the Grass day and thank you for your generosity in letting us post your words in blogs like this!

Kenning answers: Drystone waller, Buzzard, Plough

Bumblebees on the Buxton Art Trail

Bumblebee Art

 2 days of art and bumblebees

Serpentine Community Farm, Buxton

6, 7 July

What bumble would you bee? 

A humblebee? a grumblebee? a fumblebee? 

Or maybe just a Bumblebee?

For Buxton Art Trail this year, Creeping Toad is working with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust's Pollinating the Peak project to offer a different perspective on our invaluable Bumbles.

We are running 2 days of art, gardens and Bumblebees at the Serpentine Community Farm in Buxton. There will be an exhibition of paintings and pictures, mostly by local artists. There will be a chance to add your own quick pic to our wall of postcards, building a picture of a bumblebee’s world.  You can make your own bumble-badges as well or use the opportunity to talk to people about your garden – what can you do to make a home more bumble-welcome?

Join us at the Farm and enjoy art, gardens and bumble-buzzing conversations!

Position 35 on Buxton Art Trail 

Our Bumblebee Galleries will be open both days from 11am - 4pm. Admission is free  and materials are provided for activities

Paintings in this post are by Ruth Evans whose work will be included in the exhibition this weekend. Ruth's work also features in another garden conservation project: We Are The Ark so why not drop in on that as well for still more ideas about garden, wildlife and wonder?

Photos: an Orkney Bumblebee above...and below a Dovedale Bumble....

Rock Star frog

a new poem for Telling Toads

The Rock Star

Ruthie Starling 

  

Dragon-toed,

rocking mildewed leathers,

he lumbers to the poolside

seeking refreshment.

This is his favourite shady dive.

Rana. Prince of the Pond.

He’s so cool,

has all the hip-hop moves

flexes clawed gauntlets

revs to leap from heron-shadow.

boomerangs to his stony bar-stool

hungry for a piece of the action.

A squint of liquid darkness

apertures his goggling gaze.

Flirt of lacy wings zooms into sharp focus.

Damselfly, beware.

In flash and snap

his tongue will flick you straight to Heaven.

With satisfied shrug

frog slides off into the blue.

Now he is in his element.

First published Fairacre Press in their Maligned Species series in 2016.

Telling Toads is a Creeping Toad initiative inviting people to submit poems, anecodtes and short stories celerbating our amphibians. More details here 

Photos by Jane Millum (first and last pics) and by Daniel Bran Griffin. More of Bran's work can be seen, here

Whispers in the grass: event

Whispers in the grass

 

a day of words and art

Dove Valley Centre

Tuesday 9th July

11.00 - 15.00

write a poem, draw a picture, shape a story from a twig, 

a feather and a leaf….bring a picnic and relax

A breeze blows through the hay, a bumblebee buzzes, sun warms the old meadows of the Dove Valley and we all settle into an ease of stories and poems. Join the Creeping Toad and Borderland Voices team for a day of inspiration from the fields and wide skies of the valley

This event is planned as a day for casual creativity. Our artists will support you with ideas and materials and you can do as much or as little as you like. You can just take some time to simply enjoy the beauty of the Upper Dove Valley, chat to new friends or old mates and (maybe? hopefully!) watch the ravens tumbling in the sky over Pilsbury castle

Whispers is a free event: no booking or tickets are needed, just drop by and join in. If you would like to check anything out, contact Gordon on creepingtoad@btinternet.com 

Dove Valley Centre: follow the link for directions to the Centre. When you arrive at Under Whitle, you can drive down the track to the Centre (right at the end of the track) but you are recommended to park at the top of the hill and walk, saunter or wander down the hill to the Centre and enjoy the views as you drop into the deep valley

Buxton Festival Fringe

This gentle event is outside Buxton so give yourself a day off from Festival stuff and come out into the Moorlands.

A BM125 event for Buxton Museum and Art Gallery in partnership with Borderland Voices

Froglets in the grass

"Land calls us from Water"*

latest Telling Toads submissions

Spring

Jinny Fisher

Nothing there

at the edge of the pond

until your foot 

heel then toe

treads tiddly-wink close to the poised

back leg of the frog

and nothing seen

plops into the duck-weed

sets the irises swaying

in its wake.

Previously published in

2019 V. Press pamphlet The Escapologist by J Fisher

Have you stood, there, on the edge of a pond? Watching the water, wondering about life below the surface?

Take a moment to pause and dream of life in a different environment

Frogs and toads know both water and land and in these days of high summer (at least in theory) froglets and toadlets are venturing out now for the first time to meet Land. The first months of Water are ending and the surivivors of those underwater perils now face new ones as the wide dry world calls them. At least the grass is wet this week and hopefully the risk of simple desiccation is lower than in some years. But there are still lawnmowers. So please give your grass a rest from trimming for these midsummer weeks and take one peril away from the young, the restless and the brave….

Telling Toads continues to receive new poems and stories (follow the link for details for sending in your own contribution)

In this post there are two from Jinny Fisher to give you something to think about…are you alone as you read this? Or sitting with a  friend? Or in a crowded café? Poems often work best when spoken out loud. So why not….go on. Give it a go….

Make Way for the Golf Carts

Jinny Fisher

Time was, he’d leap around the pond’s edge, showing off his spring, the length of his tongue, and the size of the flies it could reel in. We’d wag our tails for him, breaking the meniscus calm of the pool. There were so many of us, but not enough: not enough applause, not enough worship.

He had to be first in line for the fairy spell. A great deal, he called it. He promised to visit us from his golden palace on the hill, once the lonely princess had kissed his slimy lips. We didn’t see the sealing—the inter-species Poof, the Wow, the ‘My Prince!’ Our Dad, our Amphibian King, was gone.

Mama whispers to us each night, ‘He won’t forget us, you’ll see.’ But even as our tails shrink and leg-buds swell, we hear news that the palace has plans to drain the pond, to bring in the bulldozers.

Previously published in

2019 V. Press pamphlet The Escapologist by J Fisher

Thank you, Jinny!

Visit Froglife for lots of amphibian (and reptile) news and information

Photographs, from the top of the page

• Ian MacLellan
• Gordon MacLellan
• Judith Bullivant 
• Gordon MacLellan (line drawing)

* from the Song of the Growing Toad which will emerge from the ponds of imagiantion one day

Lost Beasts, masks and hats event

the Lost Beasts of Buxton

Saturday 29th June

1 - 4pm

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

Making carnival masks and hats inspired by our very own 

scimitar-tooth cats, cave lions, wild horses and mammoths.

Once upon a time and not so long ago there were wolves in the Peak District hills, wild boars in the woods and beavers in the rivers. Once there were wild ponies here, and cave lions, reindeer and bears. There were scimitar-toothed cats and straight-tusked elephants. 

Before that, long and longer ago there were strange sharks swimming in ancient limestone seas.

What wonderful animal would you celebrate?

Join us at the Museum to make animal masks and hats to wear in Buxton Carnival - or just to wear and enjoy and relish the animals that lived here once (or, for unicorns, maybe "should have lived here once").

Celebrate the ancient animals of the Peaks and join Two Left Hands in the Buxton Carnival Parade. A BM125 workshop as part of the celebrations for the Museum’s 125th anniversary

 

 This event is free, no booking or tickets needed. Children under 7 should bring a grown-up with them and you need to allow 45 minutes to make an animal hat