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Season Watch

Shorelines teem with tiny toads as 'toadpoles' complete metamorphosis

By Charlie Mitchell,
Heidi Holtan
Published July 10, 2026 at 1:46 PM CDT
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A tiny tan-and-brown toad is dwarfed by surrounding grasses.
Contributed
/
iNaturalist user sls42
A tiny toad moves through grass and moss in Coon Rapids on July 5, 2021.

Co-hosts Charlie Mitchell and Heidi Holtan delight in tiny toads, listen to catbirds, and wonder at crab spiders.

Send us a voice memo through Speak Pipe!

Have you ever seen a swarm of hundreds of tiny toadlets?

This week, co-hosts Charlie Mitchell and Heidi Holtan delight in a report of metamorphosing 'toadpoles,' listen to catbird calls, and learn about crab spiders.

We hear from Steve from Grand Rapids, Roots and Wings Forest School, Heather Holm (a well-known pollinator conservationist), and our very own staff phenologist, John Latimer.

Attributions

  1. Catbird call by Jonathon Jongsma, XC143623
  2. Steve's voice memo was submitted through SpeakPipe.
  3. The Roots and Wings Forest School report, Heather Holm's interview, and John Latimer's phenology report originally aired on KAXE.
  4. This episode was produced by Charlie Mitchell and Heidi Holtan.

Love the podcast? Have toadlet stories of your own to report? Let us know! Send us a voice memo through Speak Pipe!

Email us at seasonwatch@kaxe.org.

Tags
Season Watch Season Watch PodcastKAXENorthern MinnesotaPhenologySummer phenology
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Charlie Mitchell
Charlie Mitchell (she/they) joined KAXE in February of 2022. Charlie creates the Season Watch Newsletter, produces the Phenology Talkbacks show, coordinates the Phenology in the Classroom program, and writes nature-related stories for KAXE's website. Essentailly, Charlie is John Latimer's faithful sidekick and makes sure all of KAXE's nature/phenology programs find a second life online and in podcast form.<br/><br/><br/>With a background in ecology and evolutionary biology, Charlie enjoys learning a little bit about everything, whether it's plants, mushrooms, or the star-nosed mole. (Fun fact: Moles store fat in their tails, so they don't outgrow their tunnels every time conditions are good.)
See stories by Charlie Mitchell
Heidi Holtan
For more than two decades, Heidi Holtan has helped shape the sound of KAXE. Since joining the station in 2002 as a volunteer music programmer, she has worn many hats including the weekly book program, Realgoodwords, hosting the Morning Show, creation and host of the weekly call-in program Between You and Me, serving as Outreach Producer. Program Director, News Director and currently Director of Content and Public Affairs.
See stories by Heidi Holtan
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