I was so busy last week that I didn’t go in the garden at all.
So it was a nice surprise on Saturday morning to find my first frog spawn – and by the looks of it quite a lot more than last year with at least 12 clumps now.
This was a little later than last year and about the same time as 2008.
My dates for first seeing frog spawn over the last three years are:
2008: 17th March
2009: 4th March
2010: 13th March.
March 18, 2010 at 1:47 pm |
Well, plenty of mating going on in my pond, but no spawn yet… The frogs are not shy!
March 18, 2010 at 3:04 pm |
Our fairly big pond was dug last autumn and filled, I’m sorry to say, with tap water (Yorkshire Water) before I found this site and learnt the right way to do it!
However, it was colonised by water beetles within weeks, I spotted a newt last week and there’s now a good sized ‘lump’ of frog spawn so hopefully we must have done something right. There is a little green algae but not enough to worry about.
March 18, 2010 at 3:36 pm |
Hi Sue
If you’re in Yorkshire your tapwater might be OK.
If you let me know your postcode I’d be interested to check.
Jeremy
March 18, 2010 at 4:24 pm |
Hi Jeremy
Post code YO19 6LQ in the Vale of York. I think our water comes from the Ouse.
On the subject of pollutants/nutrients…what do you think about the oil from birds feathers? We have a small water feature consisting of a bamboo half pipe and a fairly substantial ‘beach’ creating plenty of shallow water. Birds love both and spend ages bathing there which is great but there are so many using it that they leave an oily sheen on the water. Do you think that would be an unwanted pollutant or a possible nutrient for micro-organisms?
March 18, 2010 at 6:10 pm |
Hi Sue
I think oil from the birds would be pretty harmless – though I don’t really know for certain. Probably one of those things where, if you had a lot of birds coming along it might be an issue – but on the whole nothing to worry about.
Will get back shortly about the tapwater – in fact will probably write a post about it.
Jeremy
March 20, 2010 at 7:14 pm |
Hi Jeremy,
20th march, much croaking, general cavorting, poss 10 frogs, and 3 batches spawn, amazing after the thaw tragedy with final total 23 dead frogs, really delighted as have been watching weeks, last year spawn 6th march,
Anne
March 26, 2010 at 1:55 pm |
Hi,
As per reported we have frogs not sure how many but at least 4 – 5, croaking quite happily, the females are quite large and there is frogspawn on the lawn as well as quite a lot in our ponds. We have one large pond and one smaller pond, where we are trying to encourage the frogs more, but of course they still go into the larger pond where there are over 50 fish. We have a net over the large pond because we get Herons and we also have quite a fair bit of other wild animals, i.e. foxes, badgers, deer, squirrels and numerous types of birds, but we do encourage all wild animals into our garden.
Both my husband and I Keith strongly believe its important to encourage these animals and would say our first frog was seen on the 13th March by my daughter climbing the steps of our garden at the back of our house. Since then we have had loads of frogspawn….
March 28, 2010 at 6:23 pm |
Last weekend, 21st March while out walking i saw a lot of thrashing around in the pond and saw loads of frog spawn then saw two frogs mating. Today i went back to have another look and there is masses of spawn. How long before tadpoles develop?
March 28, 2010 at 7:15 pm |
Hi Wendy
It takes about 2 weeks for spawn to hatch, depending on how warm it is.
Jeremy
June 22, 2010 at 7:44 pm |
I created my pond last oct. In late feb/march i aquired some frog spawn and put it into said pond. Tadpoles developed and clustered. Water greened up with algae. Have not seen a sign of them since. There are no predators in the water that i’m aware of. Where have they gone?
June 23, 2010 at 10:00 am |
Hi,
Sorry to hear you havn’t seem to se any frogs as yet. We had loads of frogspawn, so much so I actually gave some to my friend, who also had tadpoles like myself. On checking my pond two days ago, I found two tiny fully formed frogs, hopping around in the smallest of my ponds. We still have tadpoles, but they are much larger now than a few weeks ago. Keep checking, seems strange.
October 17, 2010 at 12:06 am |
Its the 15th oct and i have just found frogspawn in my pond, is it normal to be this late in the year!
October 17, 2010 at 4:36 pm |
Remember that useful information on the frog population includes the peak number of spawn clumps or if that isn’t possible the area of the spawn matt – the area corresponds with the number of female frogs
Each clump of spawn equals one female frog so a rough idea of the numbers of frogs using the pond in the spring is literally double the number of spawn clumps at the peak of the breeding period.
J