Watching a crow drink from our somewhat stagnant pond, I was intrigued that the drips from its beak appeared rather stringy. I investigated at once.

Unbeknownst to me, frogs had returned overnight and laid a fair quantity of spawn and it was this that the crow was eating - not drinking at all. I took a large jug and collected as much spawn as it would hold, bringing it indoors to protect it; the remainder would have to look after itself while I decided how to create a suitable growing environment for it.

The following day it became obvious that the spawn was viable, the tiny black dots were not round but distinctly long. I ran off a large bowl of tap water and left it to stand, to allow any dissolved chlorine etc to disippate before setting up an emergency tadpool.

Fortunately, the bucket of hornwort weed in the garden - that bucket so favoured by bird and beast alike for their fluid intake - provided a supply of oxygenation potential. The only problem was the large quantity of duckweed attached so I spent a few hours picking off every single one before adding the weed to the large bowl in the photo.

After draining off most of the stagnant water the spawn, plus the few tadpoles that had hatched in the interval, were all added to the clear bowl.

That was last Tuesday. They're now racing round the bowl and growing fast. I'm in the process of obtaining a more suitable home for them to expand.

One last thing to report is that, on learning that a neighbour of the younger Flums has a new garden pond, I rescued more from ours and delivered it for him, so, whatever the fate of mine, at least part of Monday's surprise will survive. I look forward to regular updates in due course.