NHF excursion 2008, part four

To conclude the excursion we visited a pond nearby which is known to have salamanders in it. We saw some, both species, but we couldn't catch any of them. And there was no point in taking pictures - certainly not with my camera - as we only saw quite small specimens, which wouldn't have shown up in photographs anyway at that distance.

We did catch a frog though. One of the guys who's really into taxonomy, P, recognized the species and told us about it, but sad to say I don't remember much of that now. (He's the one holding the frog in these pictures.) It was a juvenile, although this species doesn't get a whole lot larger.

We also found a cluster of frog eggs, but they were probably dead :-( or else they would have been much more developed by that time of year.

Finally something that I thought was quite interesting - we caught this by accident when we were going for the frog:

It's a nymph, a juvenile dragonfly. I love dragonflies, so I was rather fascinated to see this. Don't think I'd ever seen one of these in real life before. It's a sight to see how ugly it is ... ! when you know how beautiful it will become. :-)

A good time was had by all!!