Photo was taken at Tullig, Millstreet, Co.Cork (Irl)

I took this photo last week. It was pure accident that I came across large clumps of frog spawn while out walking. It is always a lovely sight as frog numbers have been on decline in recent years. The frog in our photo today is that of a Common Frog, the only native frog we have in Ireland. It was raised to that of a protected species due to declining populations.The frogspawn in the photo is made up of thousands of single eggs, each one having a tiny black tadpole embryo surrounded in jelly.

Survival of the fittest is what being a frog is all about. From the three thousand eggs that one female lays, only around five will become adult frogs. The rest of the eggs or tadpoles may be eaten by birds, fish, newts, water beetles, dragonflies or simply dry up before hatching. At first each tadpole embryo will eat the jelly that is around it until it is ready to hatch.
I will follow their progress during the coming few weeks assuming of course that no predator gets in the way!

Thought on Monday – February – 23/02/2015

Thought For The Week

The word ‘lent’ has different meanings in English. He leant against the wall. She lent me some money. If you’re from Cork ‘he ran the lent of de field!’ The Lent we’re talking about means ‘springtime’, so the emphasis is on growth, on renewal and on new life. Lent is a stretching time, a challenging time, a seasonal reminder of the intrinsically challenging nature of the Christian life.’ ~Joseph Cassidy

The spiritual life is best described as a collection of gentle curves. Every curve of life in some way touches God. This means that God is connected to everything that happens throughout our lives. Even in difficult times we are helped and supported. When it comes to spirituality we can also say that Lent is like a blank canvas. Each day we can pick up the paintbrush of our lives and add colours. Like gentle curves eventually creating a circle so too with the colours of our lives. Some days our colours are bright and easy to find, while on other days our colours are scarce, lacking energy and focus. Lent is all about invitations. Each day is an invitation to simply be ourselves and to add our colour to the daily canvas of life. Lent is spread out over many weeks to give us a fair chance and even the smallest efforts on our behalf are always worth the effort.

Thought For The Week is updated each Monday and the Photograph is updated daily