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Better Late than Never |
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AndyS
Senior Member Joined: 26 Aug 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 153 |
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Posted: 20 Apr 2011 at 5:08pm |
Better Late than Never
Ok slightly long post
I was going to post this just before the site went down, so let me begin. We have a small pond in the garden, it’s a curved triangular shape (see sketch) only about 4ft (1200mm) at its widest/longish part. After reading about how people were beginning to see frogs in early February, I thought I’ll keep an eye out, so every night whilst letting the dog out I checked the pond even with a torch for signs of frog activity. No Nah nada zilch not a sign of our little friends this went on until mid march So thinking that the bad weather had killed them (previous year had only seen 6 frogs in the pond) and this was going to be a blank year for frogs. I then decided to remove the reeds that were overtaking the pond (see sketch)
Right lets pull a few out at a time, but no they all moved as one, and were too heavy to lift out in one lump, off to get the secateurs, but the roots were so tightly interwoven that it was extremely hard going, ok off to get a pad saw!! Ha haa now we’re cooking. After a short time I found the original pot that the reeds came in, totally enclosed in roots Getting on to about half way through the mass of roots (Bear in mind this mass of roots was about 15”/18” cubed!!) Out of the corner of my eye I noticed some movement underneath the roots I was about to cut into, so started pulling the roots apart, low and behold a frog how it got in to almost the centre of the root ball I’ll never know? After that I went a bit more slowly just in case, just as well found another 2 frogs nearer the top. Glad to say a couple of weeks after the removal of the reeds, we had frogspawn Which has now hatched, then just on 18/4/11 had some more frogspawn which seems quite late. |
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Liz Heard
Senior Member Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Location: South West Status: Offline Points: 1429 |
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thanks for posting andy.
enjoyable read. where are you? all the frogs in my area (glos) bred weeks ago. better late than never for you though eh? ben |
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AndyS
Senior Member Joined: 26 Aug 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 153 |
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Hi ben, that's why I thought the bad weather had killed all the frogs, because I'm down in Sunny Surrey well on the Surrey/Hants border and last year the frogs had spawned by mid february |
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lalchitri
Senior Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Status: Offline Points: 160 |
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Spotted the first froglet in my pond today, 49 days after the first spawn was laid.
Since it had absolutely no signs of a tail, it may have emerged sub-6 weeks. Edited by lalchitri - 05 May 2011 at 6:24pm |
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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That's phenomenal - shape of things to come? used to be early June at the earliest in my neck of the woods around London, and 10-12 weeks from hatching.
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lalchitri
Senior Member Joined: 06 Jun 2006 Status: Offline Points: 160 |
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I was also gobsmacked. There were two possible other explanations I could think of and rule out. Overwintering tadpole - my liner tore in the winter so I emptied everything out and started from scratch after 4 years. One of the late froglets from last year returning - way too small at less than thumbnail size. Must be the hottest London April since records began that bought this about, else 2.5 months is usual for the first non-tail froglet. |
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