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Wild mink
valerieroberts
Posts: 726
Would like advice. My small pond had a large clump of frogspawn in situ. On monday morning the pond weed was all broken up and spread about, unfortunately, no frog spawn in the pond - complete devestation. This is first time this has happened. My daughter said on sunday night she saw an animal 12 inch body with 6 .inch fluffy tail dark brown to black. Bigger than a stoat About 50 yards away running across the road. am I on the right track thinking a mink could be that animal and would it go in my pond to eat frogspawn. More importantly what can I do to stop the thief.
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Relax! Unfortunately we can't be too choosy as to what wildlife we think is desirable and what we don't want. Look on the boards if you want to find out what I mean. Some people are trying to get rid of moles; others are trying to encourage hedgehogs.
Now the mink has cleared the pond it will move on elsewhere. Friends of ours have had their pond cleared by otters.
Polecat is another alternative to Mink for what your daughter saw, but no evidence that this is what ate your frogspawn. I think it's unlikely that either of these would actually eat it due to the jelly and high water content, although they would certainly feed on adult frogs and toads. Visiting ducks are a better suspect for the mess you describe.
Very difficult to deter ducks, but I protect the spawn until it hatches by putting a mesh over it.
It could have been a weasel. These are smaller than stoats but as Onopordum says it is an unlikely frog spawn eater.
Ducks will eat frogspawn, and at this time of the year they'll also mess up a small pond, pulling at plants, reeds etc
while sussing out prospective nest sites.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
That'll certainly keep ducks off but it looks as if could provide quite an obstacle for frogs as well.
Don't worry about the frogs we will do our best for them. at the moment they are in there clinging to one another with no thought of going away for sure. As soon as all the spawn is laid they seem as though they start to eat their young, That is when the escape route will be opened and hopefully they will want to leave. It's such a small area for the tadpoles that we feed them with daphnia bugs and then a slice of white bread. As their legs start to grow raw liver on a piece of cotton seems to speed up their progress and we have dozens of froglets everywhere. Of course, All this is in the event that we have no more unwelcome visitors. Keep fingers crossed.