With what appears to be a late spring bloom , Turtle World is awash with new life. The gathering of the toads took place again this year with the same results - hundreds of thousands of tadpoles. In addition, we have a huge crop of snails this year. Pennie noticed a little tiny pebble with three tiny snails perched just above the waterline saying, "Are those snails?" Upon further inspection, they were indeed baby snails. We were amazed to discover hundreds of the tiny snails under rocks, under leaves and all over in the stream area of the pond.

I developed an ingenious method of transfering them from their birthing area in the stream into the pond itself, after I noticed they were especially fond of clinging to the underside of leaves laying on the rocks. I took several leaves and clippings of reeds from the lemon grass and laid them in the pebble stream. A couple hours later, I was happy to see them covered with the snails as they made their way to the shade. I then take the leaf and place it on a rock in the main pond. Within a few minutes, they slide off the leaf back into the water and the leaf is availble to put back in the stream. I have done this transfer on about forty leaves so far and am putting major numbers in the pond where they are needed more.

I will try to take some pictures when I have some time. (UPDATE - Here they are)





- posted by Chris @ 2:18 PM