Frog spawn.....

I had the first 2 clumps yesterday morning & then another healthy lot again this morning..! Thursday was of course the full moon so traditional in that sense.. There is certainly plenty of splishing & sploshing from there even now...

 

While it's always something I've wanted to happen, having frog spawn in my pond it has never happened naturally until now. I have tried putting spawn into the pond when given it by friends and relatives but the fish always seemed to eat it....well, at least I'm blaming them!! However, the spawn in the pond now is resting on and in some really heavy clumps of weed which the fish don't seem to be able to get at. Even then I'm still not sure that they will survive as Tadpoles as the fish like the taste of those too. So I will take half of the spawn out and put it in a large container of rain water and let them develop.

 

Yep, they'll probably come on in leaps and bounds then

 

Well, I managed to dig a jug into the pond today to get some of the Frog Spawn out of the heavy weed as a precaution against the fish eating it. I'll keep an eye on it to see how they develop:



Ain't Nature marvellous!!

 

Nice pic, Pete. I'm a little bit mystified as to why it's taken so long for spawn to get into my pond naturally because, like I said before, the pond's been there nearly 20 odd years.

 

Well, I did try to insert spawn in from other sources, friends etc, but they never made it due, I think, to the fish. This time I've allowed the edge of the pond to really weed up and the spawn is on top of that well into the middle stopping the bandits from eating it.
All my gates are solid, 7' to 8' high, with a lot less than half an inch of ground clearance at the bottom. The fences are 8' or more high in most places, to keep my cats in, and the bottom panels are concrete with no gaps. Having said that I was surprised late last year to see a hedgehog wandering through my borders and across the lawn while my cats completely ignored it. and how he/she got in I've no idea . So I don't suppose that helped Nature to get in as much as I would have liked.

 

My cats sleep under the bird bath while the birds sit on it merrily. I'm not saying that they wouldn't play "cat and mouse" with the frogs, but they do know the rules....no killing. Sally, the one eye cat, would run a mile if a frog jumped towards her!!