Frogs

Frogs

Each year when the frogs are spawning I like to take a photo with as many frogs in as possible to gauge roughly how many frogs are in the pond. Last year I took a photo with 85 frogs in the one shot, the year before 50.

This year so far my best photo has 96 frogs in the one shot.

Unfortunately the frogs were all moving too much which made focusing a bit of an issue as well as choosing the best moment to take the photo. This photo has 96 frogs in and it only covers 1/3 of the pond.

The rest of the pond only had the odd few in that could be seen. 

I know there are loads more frogs under the water, swimming and hiding so I'm hopeful tonight I may get to snap a better photo with even more in the one shot.

Click to enlarge photos.

The spawning has only just begun and I expect that whole area to be covered in spawn by the time they finish.

The best shot is normally the night shot when all the eyes are lit up by the flash and you get an spooky picture with hundreds of eyes poking out of the water.

The noise of the frogs croaking is very loud at times and I estimate that there will be a good 150 frogs in the pond at any one time as a minimum.

I can see by the size of the frogs that these are not last years young, they are much smaller, and I keep finding them all over the garden. I don't know how many of the young frogs from last year survived but judging by the number seen pottering around the garden there must be a couple of hundred. If I had to guess at the number of frogs, young and older, that live in and around the garden I think it must be 3 or 4 hundred because these ones in the pond are all too big to be last years or the years before. I only see a dozen or so of these larger ones in the garden on any week and only come across masses of smaller frogs so if you add up the 150 ish in the pond with the smaller ones in the garden I think there'll easily be 300 plus frogs.

This doesn't include the toads that appear a little later, in much smaller numbers, and we have a load of newts. The newts also bred last year in the pond but I haven't seen toad spawn yet.

All these amphibians are supported by the one 18 ft long  by 6 ft wide pond in our garden.

Next to us, a couple of hundred metres away there is a 1/3 or an acre pond which must have a load more frogs, toads and newts. In another 2 directions we have ditches or dykes within 100 metres with water in plus to the south of us at about 600 metres away there is a pond / fishing lake of an acre in size which must also have frogs etc.

Within our immediate vicinity there must be thousands of frogs, toads and newts!

The previous posts about frogs are here

Frogs

Frogs

It's that time of year again.

Last year, a milestone was reached with the pond. This year the frogs have appeared about a week later but there are even more of them. Also, most of the frogs are at the opposite end of the pond compared to last year. No idea why, but no doubt there is a good reason.

March 30 2016

The most frogs I managed to capture, within one photo, last year was 50. This year I think that there is 85 in this photo. Across the whole pond I think there were approx 100 frogs seen at any one time. Probably a lot more still hidden.

High concentration of frogs

I was speaking to a Wildlife chap the other month and he was telling me that this sort of sight has become increasingly unusual. He hadn't seen such a concentration of frogs for years so I think we're very fortunate to see this.

At times most of the frogs are within a 2 feet square area and the water boils as they tumble and turn.

The reason we are doing particularly well with the frogs is because the garden is damp and boggy in patches with a lot of long tufty grass. Also being surrounded by fields, ditches, other ponds and small lakes near by.

Wildlife Pond Milestone

Wildlife Pond Milestone

One of the first things we did with the field was to make a wildlife pond, added a few plants and sat back and waited.

The Wildlife Trust sent me on a short course about ponds and apart from the design of it needing to have shallow parts, over hanging vegetation and edges that wildlife could climb in and out of the main thing I learnt was just wait for the wildlife to colonise.

30th April 2013 (click to enlarge)

The pond was started in March 2013 and by May 2013 it was finished. A few pond plants were added and the banks seeded with wild flowers. The edges were allowed to grow wild. Within months there were diving beetles, midge and mosquito larvae as well pond snails. It was amazing how many little bugs arrived. By 2014 newts had found the pond and there were newtlets as well.

As the long grass became established frogs were seen all over the garden then one or two were seen in the pond. All very exciting and the newts should perhaps be seen as the first big milestone but unfortunately newts aren't always easy to spot and even harder to photograph since they are in the water. In 2 years the pond has changed out of all recognition and in winter and early spring looks a bit of a mess since the flowers are yet to appear and all the dead stems from last year are still around.

16th June 2014 (click to enlarge)

The summer growth almost hides the pond but the long grass and flowers attract all sorts of butterflies, moths, bees and birds.

Last summer saw a lot of algae grow and I was waiting for the other pond plants to take over which has now happened.

8th June 2014 (click to enlarge)

8th June 2014 (click to enlarge)

Summer growth completely surrounds the pond.

March 2015 sees the pond looking a little sad but it won't be long until all the greenery reappears.

21st March 2015 (click to enlarge)

I had been waiting for the frogs to appear and yesterday frog spawn appeared.

21st March 2015 (frog spawn)

Late in the evening I went out to shut the chickens up and heard some croaking so I quietly approached the pond and although I couldn't see in the dark fired off a photo. I hadn't seen so many frogs in a pond since childhood!

21st March 2015 (click to enlarge)

Using a torch I roughly counted 50 although many kept going underwater so there may well have been many more.

The next day they were out in the sunshine but they kept disappearing no matter how quietly I crept up to the pond. I sat for an hour or so waiting for them to reappear and one by one they did.

22nd March 2015 (click to enlarge)

22nd March 2015 (click to enlarge)

22nd March 2015 (click to enlarge)

I also took a video using the phone but had to have full zoom so the quality is rather poor. The end of the video shows just how quick they vanish and they didn't show again for 20 minutes.

Raspberries, Worms & Frog spawn

Frogs Spawn - 21st March

Frog Spawn

Even though we have had hundreds of frogs and some toads in the field last year they didn't spawn and I introduced some tadpoles that a friend's daughter got. She was going to keep them in a bowl for a bit of fun but I gave them a better home. This year there is a lot of spawn. It would be nice to see some toad spawn and I'll have to keep fingers crossed.

Raspberries

Malling Leo Raspberry bed

Yet another raspberry bed. 10 plants go in today since you can't have too many raspberries and the digging will also help drainage and fertility. 5 wheel barrows of manure mixed with the clay should hopefully break it up a lot but judging by other beds it'll take another year or 2 of manure mulching to make the soil better.

Worms

I'm still at a loss as to why people buy worms for a wormery. Simply put a load of manure on the ground, wait a couple of months and before you know it you have hundreds upon hundreds of worms. One spadeful alone must have had well over 50 worms. A barrow load taken from a worm rich seam must have had several hundred.

The First Big Day of Rain

Today has seen the first day of the Autumn rain. It may have rained before now, but today is a constant heavy rain day and therefore a thinking about tomorrow day.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the vegetable patch. Several weeks ago I made two beds of Stuttgart Onions in an area near the gate that normally floods. The area was deliberately dug up so that water wouldn't just sit on the surface and in the spring / summer there was a good crop of potatoes there. The patch was re-dug, manured and had some sand added to help break the clay and then a layer of hay / dried grass taken from a Salt Marsh was laid on top to keep moisture in during dry periods.

Onion beds, not raised

Initial inspections have shown using the grass mulch seems to be keeping the top of the soil moist which in theory will help to bring to the surface more worms and bugs which will lead to more of the top soil clumps being broken down by the Spring.

The onions in this patch have started to grow very well. At least 5 to 10cm in height as they got the benefit from the last couple of weeks of good temperatures.

Raised Beds

The second veg patch on the other side of the field was dug much deeper, with much more manure and sand added. At least 12 wheel barrows of well rotted mulch was added as well as 2 or 3 barrows of sand. A spade width channel was dug around the edge to stop weeds and grass encroaching but this also had the effect of raising the bed by another fork depth. The overall depth must be about 24", planted with onions, garlic and dwarf broad beans, some were taken from the summer seeds and some were from a packet. Again covered in Salt March Hay. 

Hopefully this second raised bed will be better at draining and with the amount of work put in, hopefully produce better onions as I'll be able to compare one side of the field with the other.

The Garlic bulbs were taken from the summer crop just like some of the Broad Beans so that will be an interesting test to see if I can grow on using our own seed.

During the week I also cut the long grass which was left on about half the field. It was cut down to about 5cm so that I could then take a rake and fork and scar some of the ground to sow some wild flower seed. During the Spring and summer there were a large variety of different grasses, docks, plantain and a few small flowers but I will start to add Yellow Rattle, Bird's Foot Trefoil and Agrimony seed from the Wildlife trust as well as sprinkle in some of the summer's Poppy Seeds and Corn Flower Seeds. Some of the Yellow rattle seed was placed in a freezer and some will be sown direct without being frozen for a few weeks.

While cutting the grass it became very obvious as to why the Wildlife people say leave an area of the garden to grow wild since I found 30 or so frogs, several toads and a load of hairy caterpillars that I think were Eyed Hawk Moths not to mention so mice/voles/shrew type things that moved too quick to identify. Must make a note to take a camera when I cut next year. Luckily the lawn mower went over the top of the frogs and many were seen hopping away just before the mower arrived.