Life in the Rice Paddy

As water fills up a paddy field, sleeping creatures come to life. A female green frog pursues a male with louder croaking. Male green frogs with less developed vocal sacs hide behind loudly croaking male frogs and leap quickly to intercept approaching females. A water beetle has a special predatory skill. The water beetle lifts a fairy shrimp up on to the surface of the water to hide it from other underwater predators before eating it. Crakes, black-winged stilts, and painted snipes find a paddy field and begin mating. The dreadful summer rainy season approaches and the birds hang on to submerged reeds, never letting their eggs fall from their mouth. A raccoon family escapes from the flood waters. But the mother raccoon sees danger and must come to the rescue, and then holds and nurses its hungry pups. Male and female narrow-mouth frogs have been waiting all year for the rainy season, and now they can finally spawn.