They seem to live on the bottom of the pond and zig-zag at great speed up to the surface and back down again within a second or two. It would be great if they were tads.
I do see loads of newts from about .5" long but they have a much slimmer and paler semi-transparent body and seem to lay in the shallows or dart about in the water eating daphne and the like. I could be newts at an earlier stage though as even the tiny newts I see have little arms and legs
Thanks for all your ideas I'll see if I can take a video next summer - not long now....
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I have noticed some juvenile mosquito swimming in a couple of containers of stagnate water in the past week. They do look like heads with clear longish bodies, just wiggling around in no particular direction. I was surprised to see them now. They usually leave the water and start flying around in April or May.
They did also sound like tads to me too, once @Pete.8 described them, but I thought he meant he'd seen them recently, and I didn't think that would be the case due to his location, and the fact that he has newts. Then he said he didn't have any frogspawn, so I ruled that out.
Maybe the froggies are sneaking in when he isn't looking...
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I don't think they are tads as years ago I had masses of spawn and baby froglets hopping over the lawn on a wet summers day from my fish pond - which is now home to a single huge koi. So I have seen tads at all stages of development. For the last 10 or so years I've not even seen a frog anywhere. I have some toads lurking around the heavily planted header-pool of the waterfall of my koi pond, but no frogs to be seen. Years ago in Feb there would be mounds of spawn and the noisy mating I would hear while trying to get to sleep at night and some areas of the pond seemed to boil with mating activity with spawn everywhere. The wiggly things I see behave like when a worm is (accidentally) cut in half and they wiggle like mad - looks very similar same and they are a muddy dark grey on the back and lighter grey underneath. Never seen any spawn in my little wildlife pond but it is rammed with newts. But, maybe they are tads..
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I’m wondering about leeches @Pete.8 ... I know they absorb oxygen through their skin but I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that they move to the surface if they’re in poorly oxygenated water ... but I can’t find any reference to that now 😖
Normally tadpoles will develop into young amphibians and leave the pond
during the summer months but if conditions aren't right, they may
choose to overwinter in the pond and finish their development the
following spring. This could be seen as an advantage: as long as these
tadpoles survive the winter, they will have a head start next year and
have much more time as froglets to feed up before winter arrives again.
I have had a decrease of spawn in my pond over the last few years, basically down to one or two bunches now. We also have newts, and even a grass snake visiting sometimes. Numbers are impacted, but we still get little froglets. I've followed the spawn development pretty much every day, and don't really have a doubt that these surface-bombers are tadpoles.
Having looked at pics of tad. development, they don't look the same. Tads have thin tails and relatively large heads. My wigglers are just slightly swollen at one end and have a stubby tail very much like a tiny high-speed aquatic slug.
However - at Dove's suggestion I had a look at leech development and they do look just like these - so once again, if these leeches can wiggle at high-speed, I think Dove has cracked it
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Posts
It would be great if they were tads.
I do see loads of newts from about .5" long but they have a much slimmer and paler semi-transparent body and seem to lay in the shallows or dart about in the water eating daphne and the like. I could be newts at an earlier stage though as even the tiny newts I see have little arms and legs
Thanks for all your ideas
I'll see if I can take a video next summer - not long now....
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Maybe the froggies are sneaking in when he isn't looking...
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I have some toads lurking around the heavily planted header-pool of the waterfall of my koi pond, but no frogs to be seen.
Years ago in Feb there would be mounds of spawn and the noisy mating I would hear while trying to get to sleep at night and some areas of the pond seemed to boil with mating activity with spawn everywhere.
The wiggly things I see behave like when a worm is (accidentally) cut in half and they wiggle like mad - looks very similar same and they are a muddy dark grey on the back and lighter grey underneath.
Never seen any spawn in my little wildlife pond but it is rammed with newts.
But, maybe they are tads..
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I wonder if @wild edges has any ideas?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
However - at Dove's suggestion I had a look at leech development and they do look just like these - so once again, if these leeches can wiggle at high-speed, I think Dove has cracked it
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.