I have three small ponds on my allotment and am fortunate enough to have spawn in all three. Frogs have, in recent years, been dying from a virus and so, as far as I know, it is forbidden to move spawn from on pond to another in case this spreads the disease. It is a pity that children do not get to investigate wildlife as we did as youngsters. Or was it us who started the problems?
We had loads of frog spawn earlier on this year but with the heavy frosts and snow I doubt whether they have survived? They are looking rather black and lifeless. However, more has appeared and it is looking fertile and fresh so hopefully all will hatch ok. Pond 1 is full of frogs, a few toads and, I hope, a newt or two so am looking forward to whatever emerges from the spawn. Pond 2 is in it's first complete year and we were happy to see some spawn in there too, but again, that was early on and it may be infertile?
Reply to ...wow...everyone: I think Gardenersworld.com needs to have a pond website. This blog entry has attracted so many comments. Where to start?
Lots of spawn comes to nothing, so if yours fails don't worry. Frogs lay their eggs in the most inappropriate places such as shallow puddles, cart ruts, water buts, flooded buckets and drains. I had some spawn in my garden pond, but it melted away, helped by the feeding of pond snails. The frogs will be back next year.
A pond needs be no bigger than a garden sink to attract frogs and have them lay eggs. Only a handful of tadpoles will make it through to maturity, but mortality is high in nature everywhere.
It is a common misconception that frogs only occur in ponds. In fact they spend most of their time out of water, really only returning to breed. A logpile or mass of twigs behind the shed is just as valuable to them, providing shelter during the whole year.
The disease of frogs causing some concern to wildlife groups is called redleg, a virus which leads to other bacterial and fungal infections and apparently causes subcutaneous bleeding to cause the red colour in the limbs. It is partly because of this that moving spawn from one location to another is now being discouraged.
And finally a reply to hellsbells. I disagree. I make a point never to leave wildlife alone. I study it. I interact with it. I show it to others, especially children. It's all very well being an armchair naturalist, but more people need to get their hands on. Growitallkath is right, more children need to get their hands dirty, grubbing for ground beetles, or wet, pond-dipping after boatmen and frogspawn.
The end of feb beginning of march was a busy time in our pond for frog activity,out each day counting each fresh blob until you could'nt tell how many more had been added. All was well until night temps of -5 and -6 over a week our frog spawn suffered, some mornings the top frozen solid. Over the next few weeks the first few lots turned into healthy little tads, but some of the later had clearly became lost to the frost. We had a late spawner in a different part of the pond so I decided to try and take care of the first and last lot buy moving middle lot to a local pond, giving the tads more room and hopeing for better weather for the spawn. I pleased to say we have thousands of healthy tads and we will do our best to increase our frog pop. We think nature does sometimes needs a helping hand because the weathers not helping them.
I adore frogs, last summer i had a garden full of frogs it was wonderful even though i don't have a pond. So i found some large plastic bowls and buried them up to the rim and filled them with water and watercress plants. they seem to be very happy. however this season i have not seen any and it makes me quite sad, i don't know where they went or why they have not come back. such a shame.
Just an update on my tadpoles,some are getting really big, some are small, some brown speckley, some black, but all a pleasure to have in my pond,I have high hopes for some little legs growing soon, I will keep you updated.Just as I was starting to type this I was called to window to see my first sighting of an hedgehog this year,what is it about seeing frogs and hedgehogs in your garden? it always makes me smile.
I've got a dilemma. We noticed the other night that we have some frogspawn in the oddest place. It's near our garage in a drainage cover where some water has collected. I don't really know what to do with it. At the end of our garden we've not done any planting and the garden is a bit more wild. What I need to know is should I leave the frogspawn where it is and hope that if all goes well the frogs will move to a better area or move them now to the end of the garden?
I live in east sussex, I have just got a new pond which has been "settling" for about 3 weeks. Where can I get frogspawn from? i have been to about 4 different ponds and have not found any spawn or indeed tadpoles!
Baby Frog Alert, just been cutting the grass and had to stop theres little frogs jumping around.I saw one last Thursday still in the pond but it had four legs and still a long tail, these jumping around have no tails at all they're very tiny and no sense, coming out at this time of day. I'm so pleased and I can't stop smiling. Anyone else got any frogs yet.Lexy its to late this year for spawn concentrate on making a good environment for frogs and you will get some before long and then next year you will have lots of your own. Next year is not that far off for frog spawn approx 7-8 months. Good luck.
Baby frogs everywhere, busy weekend in the garden trimming hedges, weeding boarders, cleaning the pond a little, every job we did we were finding baby frogs, the border was alive some as tiny as my little finger nail some a bit bigger we saw one which still had a little tail they really are gorgeous. I still haven't cut the grass because I don't want any fatalities. Watching the frogs the other night we saw one with only three legs and a stump he was quite a big frog so we wondered if he/she had a accident when small because he/she moved very well, we didn't recognise the frog but it was with our usual mob, it will be nice to see if he sticks around. Anyone else got any frog updates?
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Lots of spawn comes to nothing, so if yours fails don't worry. Frogs lay their eggs in the most inappropriate places such as shallow puddles, cart ruts, water buts, flooded buckets and drains. I had some spawn in my garden pond, but it melted away, helped by the feeding of pond snails. The frogs will be back next year.
A pond needs be no bigger than a garden sink to attract frogs and have them lay eggs. Only a handful of tadpoles will make it through to maturity, but mortality is high in nature everywhere.
It is a common misconception that frogs only occur in ponds. In fact they spend most of their time out of water, really only returning to breed. A logpile or mass of twigs behind the shed is just as valuable to them, providing shelter during the whole year.
The disease of frogs causing some concern to wildlife groups is called redleg, a virus which leads to other bacterial and fungal infections and apparently causes subcutaneous bleeding to cause the red colour in the limbs. It is partly because of this that moving spawn from one location to another is now being discouraged.
And finally a reply to hellsbells. I disagree. I make a point never to leave wildlife alone. I study it. I interact with it. I show it to others, especially children. It's all very well being an armchair naturalist, but more people need to get their hands on. Growitallkath is right, more children need to get their hands dirty, grubbing for ground beetles, or wet, pond-dipping after boatmen and frogspawn.