Star Slime

 Fencepost of the Week #187

This fencepost has been used as a butchering block by some bird feasting on frogs. The ground around was littered with discarded globs of star slime - the inedible jelly which frogs and toads lay their eggs in. At this time of year the slime does not yet contain the eggs, but if you look around near the slime, you can often find a blackish blobby mass of eggs.

 

Frogspawn and Fenceposts

Fencepost of the Week #66

While out admiring fenceposts at this time of year one often finds the objects of their appreciation mysteriously adorned with globs of frogspawn. Questions arise: 'Who put them there?', 'Why?' and - if you have ever tried to pick up frogspawn - 'How!?'

If you like frogs, the answer may sadden you - the spawn is all that remains of a gravid female frog that was caught by a bird and - being too large for the bird to swallow whole - was taken to a fencepost where it was pecked to bits.

In a few weeks time, lumps of a mysterious, pale, translucent slime will start to appear on the banks of ponds and swamps. Sometimes it is called star slime - but it is the poisonous, distasteful remans of a toad that has been similarly caught and selectively eaten by some beaked creature. More at Wikipedia.