Amazing Fastest Spawing Ever

[The PIT]

Well spawning was late this year and is normally proceeded by a week of croaking and much pond activity.

There's been no sign of any frogs and the pond was frozen most mornings until yesterday.

This morning I went out to do the weather. Pond still no sign of life I looked again and the frogs had spawned and seemingly left straight away. No sign of activity even now.

Perhaps they know an unexpected cold snap is coming.

[Polar Continental]

The frogs in my pond did take an early dip around the half of December, but got frozen in later, as I could see them moving around under a thick layer of ice. I did thaw a couple of holes in the ice with a hot kettle of water, not sure if it did any good! I assume the frogs buried them selves in mud at the bottom, rather than leave the pond, as the freezing conditions never really let up.

Frog activity has returned in the last few day’s, all be it much later than usual, but have not heard the usual crocking yet this year, probably because the nights have been cold with continued frosts. No sign of spawn yet, but I have seen a frog which seemed heavily laden with spawn.

[Terminal Moraine]

A garden where I've been working today has a good sized pond which catches the sun from about 10 a.m until mid-afternoon at this time of year. The frogs became active at the end of last week and today the pond has been boiling with them. At the shallow end there's about 2 good buckets worth of spawn.

My own pond is showing about as much activity as the dark side of the Moon.

[Polar Continental]

Frog activity has now reached a crescendo in my pond, there must be at least 50 frogs with masses of spawn, all at the shallow end of the pond.

All sound well and good….last year was similar, all be it around a month earlier, but many of the frogs were killed by an animal, I suspect a cat or fox, as they were just left dead in the garden with bite marks, but even more strange, all the spawn disappeared completely and there were no tadpoles at all, quite odd, though I did know frogs may be taken, I didn’t know spawn had predators, apart from fish, but there are none in my pond.

I have only found 1 frog killed this year, maybe by the same animal which inflicted such devastation last year, hopefully it has lost the taste for frogs, but I am worried that the spawn my disappear again.

The only thing I can think of, would be to collect the spawn in a bucket and re- introduce the tadpoles to the pond later!

Anyone else had similar problems?