Finally we can report eggs in Michigan! I checked Friday evening and we had none, then didn't check again till Sunday morning and saw about 6 to 7 strands. We had rain all day Saturday so I'm guessing they went in over night between Friday and Saturday. The egg strands in most cases had a layer of fine silt over them which makes me think the rain and wind may have silted them over.
I'll put the date for 2023 as March 25, 2023!
Not sure if it is harmful to the egg strand to gently reposition them? I swirled a little water over them to wash the silt of and then redraped them up over leaves and sticks to try to get the best possible chance of successful hatch. I found it interesting that some of the individual eggs already had white on them. I thought the white color came many days later to indicate no successful fertilization but these are white already in some instances.
This year the eggs were pretty evenly distributed around the South, SW and SE corners and all in about the exact depth water, about 18" This year they also preferred to use sticks, underwater branches of my swamp buttercup bushes and flattened reeds that happened to be underwater as the preferred spot for laying eggs. Only 2 skeins were laying on the oak leaves in the south edge which is the usual favorite place.
I put in a few more branches and we'll see where the late eggs go. New ribbons seem to appear for a week at least after the first sighting depending on weather conditions. We have had a lot of rain, a little snow, some melts and the water table is pretty high so the pond edges are pretty much near full pool.
