FROGS
From A to Z

We have it on good authority (wink, wink) that the plants and animals who favor small bodies of water for their homes or restaurants do not care a lick whether the pond be of natural or human origin, and so we shall not be bothered by that distinction either. In fact, we will encourage you to create a pond of your own, but that’s for another day.

Tramping or hiking about in the world, you might come across a lovely Scottish lochan or a deep and still Scandinavian tarn—ponds both, by other names (do they smell as sweet?). Now, that begs the question, doesn’t it? How do we recognize a pond for a pond, even if we’ve found one in the middle of Russian tundra?

Here is a nice, simple definition to differentiate a pond from a lake. We’ll start with the fact that they are open bodies of water, and while a pond may be deep let’s call it a pond if light can reach all the way to its bottom. You might not be able to see the bottom yourself, but if the sun can get there we’ll call it a pond.

A little water all by itself does not a pond make, of course. Within that water you’ll find fish more often than not, even in the smallest ponds. If you were lucky enough in grade school to bring a bit of pond water back to the microscope, you also know that the clearest water is hardly empty. A drop of water on a glass slide becomes a carnival of acrobats: zooplankton, phytoplankton (algae for one), and bacteria living in a floating, flowing world.

A pond is also its bottom and its shores. Rich accumulations of organic matter cover what is usually a bedrock base. Bacteria thrive there, and larger creatures hide comfortably in the warmth and darkness of the sediments. Maybe these are the frogs and salamanders that move all through the water, hide in the bottom, and move to the pond’s shores where reeds and grasses among a great variety of plants grow bountifully from nutrients they sift out of the pond’s rich waters.

Beyond the shoreline, larger animals dwell who come to visit and sip from the pool. Trees stretch roots out toward the pond’s banks and drop leaves and needles into the water as its own contribution to the cycle.

“Fine and dandy,” you might say, “all that life around the pond, and maybe you like to take a swim now and again to cool off. Still, the ponds have taken care of themselves, and frankly, it’s the taking care of me that I need to be concerned with, although I love the Earth and all that lives on it.” You would be perfectly right to say it, and if the next article in this series doesn’t prove that taking care of our own health and happiness might as well start in a pond as anywhere else, then you’ll be absolutely right to hop, hop along your own way.