While the garden has always had more than it’s fair share of frogs in all sizes, from mini to maxi, there’s always been one thing lacking in the Spring – Frogspawn!
Each year I’ve hoped to see a mound of jelly-like globules in the water, and every year so far I’ve been disappointed. I’ve always assumed that our frogs disappeared off to the ponds they were born in to spawn there and then return.
So it was with great excitement in March that I came home from work one day and found a small lump of spawn in the water! There then began a nerve wracking few weeks where I had my fingers, toes and everything crossed that the weather wouldn’t turn again and kill the spawn.
I took a few photos as the spawn developed over the weeks, it was really fascinating to see the black blobs turn into something reminiscent of a tadpole inside the egg.
I also bought a cheap, second-hand waterproof point and click camera to get an idea of what was going on under the surface. This was incredible to see, and good timing as just a few short days after I took these shots the tadpoles hatched!
At time of writing (July) our tadpoles still haven’t turned into frogs. They have become enormous however, so I don’t think it’s far off. They did seem to take a long time to develop even at the egg stage, and I think the weather had a lot to do with this. We’ve had some quite dramatic temperature fluctuations here in Spring and early Summer – at one point we had temperatures between 4 degrees and the early 20’s within the same week! I think this may have affected their development. I’m not too worried though and am looking forward to seeing the young frogs climb out of the pond for the first time later in the year
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