Frogs, Toads & Newts 2015

[frogesque]

The last of the ice has retreated from the pond, the sun is out and right on cue the first frogs have appeared. No activity as such but it won't be long now!

 

So, what's happening down your way?

[Gray-Wolf]

Well pm on the 12th we saw a coupled up pair of frogs in our mini pond!!!

 

Never even heard them this early before. Must have been a 'Dry Run' as no spawn as yet! 

 

Last year was the first time I ever witnessed new laid spawn become hydrated ( over a period of the afternoon) and the 'white' centres become fertile black ones!!!

[Mapantz]

Finally found this thread!

 

As i reported in my status yesterday, i went for a walk around my "estate" - as i like to call it. I was greeted with some croaking coming from an area i built in the pond, specifically for frogs and toads. I saw a couple of frogs dating, so spawn will be appearing soon. I hope it survives this year, as last year, it went funny and rotted away. The year before was like a plague, baby frogs all over the garden!

[mushymanrob]

nowt here yet.... i expect toads to migrate soon though if its damp and mild enough (over 6c) in the early evening.
 

i used to run a toadsave project many years ago for the derbyshire wildlife trust.

[SteveB]

Loads and loads of frog spawn in the pond, they've certainly been busy these last few weeks

[sundog]

Opened my front door this morning to go out and just right outside the front door was a big fat frog,wasnt expecting that ,kind of startled me a bit.

[picog]

Had a bit of croaking the other night, but no spawn yet. We generally get tons, so plenty of time yet.

[The PIT]

There was some surprising activity a few weeks back nothing since though and no spawn. Fish are feeding though which surprised me.

[picog]

Starting to get a tad concerned now about the lack of spawn. I hope the local frogs are OK. Must be patient, the next few days warmer weather might bring them out.

[frogesque]

Frogs are active in our pond but the cold weather has stopped them spawning so far.

 

We also appear to have a white/very pale female coupled up with a 'normal' male. Will try to get a photo but for the moment they are both lurking in the depths.

[picog]

We suddenly have about 13 blobs of spawn, all from last night when the temperature was below freezing all night! Very unexpected. Maybe more tonight, here's hoping. Normal spawn count is around the 25-30 mark, so hoping for quite a bit more.

[Gray-Wolf]

Still waiting for mine to spawn but they are being a lot more active even in daylight the past couple of days.

[picog]

Lots of spawn now and still some froggy action in the pond this afternoon.

[frogesque]

We have our first blobs of spawn and the pond is very busy. We counted 26 frogs with more lurking in the depths going by the streams of bubbles. The males have also been very vocal the last 2 days. Frost free and all the signs are good for loads of taddies.

[picog]

Some spawn was well above the water. For some reason this year they seem to have crammed themselves into a shallow spot. Moved some spawn a short distance into deeper water to prevent frost and drying out killing it.

[frogesque]

Some spawn was well above the water. For some reason this year they seem to have crammed themselves into a shallow spot. Moved some spawn a short distance into deeper water to prevent frost and drying out killing it.

Ours too, I think the water is still quite cool and they are definitely favouring the shallows on the sunnier side of the pond. I've given up trying to count how many we have now. It's pure chaos out there!

[Mapantz]

All my frog/toad spawn was eaten by my fish, again..

[The PIT]

Loads of spawn interesting how they chose the ponds which must water temperature related. Activity now in both the large ponds but next to nothing in the smaller pond.

[Gray-Wolf]

Finally got spawn! Had started to worry that I'd lost my females but apparently not! Huzzah!

[frogesque]

My lot seem to have finished. A couple of new spawn blobs overnight but only one lonely frog left. The bottom of the pond is covered and there's plenty at the edges too. Should have the first taddies soon.

[SteveB]

My spawn is starting to wiggle, I'm sure some have hatched

[Walsall Wood Snow]

I reduced the size of my old punctured pond last May. Basically I filled it in and put a prefabricated one in the middle of where the big one was. Anyway a few frogs have made use of it and there's currently about 6 or 7 clusters of frogspawn in it. Last year I saved the spawn in a container which was layed in the still watertight bottom of the old pond. However when I transferred the tadpoles to the newly completed pond a couple of months later they mysteriously disappeared except the odd one within a week. There were hundreds maybe thousands before that. Even if I went all round with a net I wouldn't find any which was strange. Hope to have more luck with them this year. My next door neighbour has had far more spawn than me, but alas has fished it all out and threw it away predictably. Such is his idiotic hatred of real nature and his love of man bred fish. I should note that he has 2 ponds and the pond the frogs use isn't the one with the fish, that being raised. I don't understand why he has the other one besides being connected to the fish pond via the pump creating a waterfall effect into it. He only gets rid of the spawn because a few years ago a male frog accidentally killed one of his fish. He used to fish the frogs out as well and drive them away somewhere but I think he's stopped this after me complaining to much about it. Anyway I think people like him shouldn't be allowed a pond if that's what he's going to do. The thing is aswell I'm responsible for introducing them in the first place. There are no natural ponds near me that aren't separated by busy roads and nobody else on our street has one to my knowledge. So basically when I first had the pond put in, for the first few years I put the spawn in myself from a couple of friends ponds. Over time the population exploded but unfortunately the bulk of them decided to use my neighbours pond for breeding which is pointless anyway (not that they understand). Anyway I just hope that I we can get a good few to develop this year, as it's been at least 3 years since the last time what with my pond getting punctured and my taddies mysterious disappearance last year. Sorry for length of post by the way.

[Walsall Wood Snow]

By the way anyone, you don't think what my neighbours doing could cause the local population to go extinct do you? He's such a stubborn man he's probably never going to change his mind about them. Which means if I don't provide a breeding place for them I fear this may happen.

[picog]

By the way anyone, you don't think what my neighbours doing could cause the local population to go extinct do you? He's such a stubborn man he's probably never going to change his mind about them. Which means if I don't provide a breeding place for them I fear this may happen.

Just keep rescuing spawn and you WILL be saving frogs in your area. My tadpoles always seem to disappear after a while despite there being thousands of them. But come June time I often see beautiful minature frogs hopping about in the damp places in the garden, so some survive.

My tadpoles all hatched and currently still in the seething black fizzing mass stage of togetherness. The odd one or two are swimming away from the main group, but this will increase over the next few days. Newts now in abundance in the pond - probably in for a good feed of tadpoles!

[Walsall Wood Snow]

Thanks picog. Can't really save the spawn in my neighbours pond though. But hopefully what gets laid in my pond should keep the population going.