Baby frogs
Tallulah
Posts: 38
For the past few years I have noticed frogs in my garden and only ever one or two in my minuscule wildlife pond (preformed plastic 3ft. by 2ft.and 10 ins. at deepest end . Last autumn I cleared a lot of overgrown pond weeds from pond leaving one or two smallish plants and noticed this week(mid May) for the first time ever a colony of at least 12 frogs including at least 3 juveniles....about 1 inch body length. This encouraged me to think that they probably were bred in my pond from spawn laid earlier this year.
But can this timing be possible since I noticed yesterday that tadpoles in another local pond had not yet developed into baby frogs. Is it possible that my small juveniles could be in fact one year old? Also is it likely that my whole colony including juveniles have migrated from another pond.
Posts
Tadpoles develop at different rates, according to conditions - some even over-winter as tadpoles and meta-morphose the following spring.
We have some tiny ones, about an inch long, in our garden - think they were tadpoles in our neighbour's pond last year.
Yours look very happy
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thanks for the info Dove....but why do you assume your frogs were bred in next doors pond rather than yours. i am even more confused and very disappointed now however since after having been VERY visible for a few days my frogs now all seem to have disappeared within the last two days. I wonder if frogs only sit around at the surface of the pond on really hot days which is when I saw mine. Now it's cooled down they have disappeared ....except for the occasional plops when they are disturbed. Or possibly they do not hang around in the pond much at all unless its too hot to hunt for food. Or third possibility is they were in transit rather than resident?
I'm certain that they weren't bred in our pond - 'cos we only made it a few weeks ago!
Frogs get up to all sorts of things - just as you get used to seeing them in one place they go somewhere else - our littlest ones like to spend time in long damp grass - think that's where they are this morning after the rain - we have a bigger one who, before we had the pond, spent rainy mornings on our terrace and sunny afternoons in the bottom track of the sliding door of the studio!!! We had to be so careful not to squash him!!!
But once they get used to having a pond, they'll keep going back to it
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm still rather disappointed that I have seen no sign of my frogs over the last few days after they were so very visible last weekend. I need advice about pond plants which must be a compromise between what I will enjoy looking at and what will make frogs happy. I am rather unhappy about the (indigenous) water marigold currently in situ since it tends to quickly overwhelm a tiny pond. I would much prefer a (foreign) Pygmy water lily and a grass or vertical plant of some sort. Are the frogs likely to be fussy about which plants I choose, so long as they have some shelter? Also how much vegetation do they need in the pond ....I have a feeling that the frogs are happier with less rather than more since this year with only 30% of the pond filled with plants (plus the duckweed)...my frogs have been more evident and abundant than last year when there were far more pond weeds.
Any advice about planting would be welcome...I have planted up the area around the pond with a variety of foliage plants which will give them some shade....but do frogs prefer the pond itself to be in sun or shade?
Thanks for your help so far.