As a child, I loved catching frogs and toads.

American toad eggs hatch in a few days to a few weeks and the tadpole stage lasts 50-65 days. Emerging toadlets are among the smallest newly transformed amphibians and soon disperse into the surrounding habitat.

Here is how small they can be:

Toads eat insects and small soil creatures such as worms and slugs.

American Toads hibernate on land and burrow beneath the frost line in the soil.

These insects, Bronzed Tiger Beetles, were very busy along the small beaches:

Thanks to Ken Sproule for assistance in insect identification.

Other flyers:

snails

and some playful dogs:

I had intended to explore the southernmost section of the Seaton Trail but, instead, found a lovely meadow trail leading to Duffins Creek:

Some botany:

NATURE POETRY

Between the dusk of a summer night
And the dawn of a summer day,
We caught at a mood as it passed in flight,
And we bade it stoop and stay.                      – William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

Miles Hearn