x4 images. Double click to enlarge.
Back in February I noticed the frogs had did their thing and laid eggs in small clumps initially. Then as the days passed the pond was quite full of eggs!
And there appeared to be no stopping them.
I spotted around 3 frogs amidst the plant growth and frogspawn, appearing quite content.
I even found one out and about skirting the perimeter. Now the pond is alive with young tadpoles eating algae off the stones.
Common Frog (Rana temporaria) – This is an early stage tadpole, and I appear to have zillions of these teeming in my small garden pond at the moment. Note the branch-like appendages either side of the head … these are external gills, which as the tadpole develops will become wrapped in a pocket of skin to become internal. Amazing to think that this little fellow, if all goes well, will become a frog! Double-click for a closer peek.
Copyright: Peter Hillman
Camera used: Nikon D7200
Date taken: 16th March 2020
Place: Rear garden, Staffordshire
I have noticed how big the young frogs are now growing in the garden pond. I spied four of them amongst the Water Mint and pond weed poking their heads out the water.
Feel free to click the images to enlarge and click again to get even closer …
© Pete Hillman August 2019
The other night I caught a couple of frogs in and around the garden pond. With temperatures in the high twenties amd touching thirty who can blame them? 🙂
Click once to expand view, click again to get that little bit closer
Common Frog Rana temporaria, , July 2018, rear garden pond, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman.
Whilst out on a walk this morning along the bank of my local river the first thing I had noticed was that my favourite willow had finally succumbed to the ravages of disease and winter storms. It looked like it had been split asunder by a giant axe as half of it lay torn to one side. But as I looked along the massive bough of the torn section I noticed a strange gooey jelly-like substance coating the moss which cloaked the branch.
It appeared in clumps on one section of the bough, some of it clear, and some of it with small dark irregular spots within the jelly. None appeared on the ground.
I thought ‘frog spawn’ at first, but up a tree? Although half the tree had fallen it was not flat on the ground, but had come to rest against other trees.
Some say this strange gooey substance has come from passing meteors, and others have attached supernatural elements to its appearance.
But a more down-to-earth explanation is most likely. Some birds like herons, buzzards and crows will eat frogs, but they tend to leave the ovaries because the spawn swells massively when it comes into contact with water, which would not be very agreeable to a bird’s digestive system. The spawn is held in glycoprotein, the jelly-like substance, so mystery solved, apparently, without extraterrestrial intervention.
April 2018, local river, Staffordshire, England. © Pete Hillman
Out in my garden in the dark hours my torch fell on the first frog I have seen in my small pond. He or she had slime on its nose but appeared quite happy taking a dip amongst the pond plants.
Common Frog (Rana temporaria), rear garden pond, Staffordshire, England. June 2017.
This was a warm sunny day when I found this young frog swimming in a local pool.
Photographs taken September 2011, Staffordshire.
See also Common Frog (Rana temporaria).
Nature Journeys 