Frogs legs… and heads and tails and spawn

The frogs have been busy this year; really busy. Much busier than last year. Reading back through last year’s post, I see that this is the 17th year for frogs in this garden. My neighbours are now saying they see little frogs too – I’m not sure they like it but I’m glad to have a positive impact on our local wildlife.  I haven’t used and slug pellets in a year and I think this is the result. We’ll have to wait until next year to see if it’s the same. It was difficult to count as they kept moving and diving but I counted over 25 individual frogs; there were probably more.

Frogs; it’s that time of year again.

Spring must be on it’s way. On top of the mesh that keeps Miss Heron from having the koi for breakfast, dinner and tea, are little mounds of frogspawn. I’ve been raising frogs since I was about 8 when we used to collect it from the muddy field by our house and bring it back to my dad who used to set up an old fish tank in the garden.  Over the years the fish tank got more elaborate and as soon as I moved out on my own, I built a pond. Again the pond has got more elaborate but frogs are always included. In the first spring we had after I moved into this house in 1991, I went to our local wildlife reserve  with a bucket (this is probably illegal) and my brother who offered to go into the reeds and collect me some spawn. As he gingerly stepped towards the frogs spawn in his jeans and t-shirt, he sunk up to his thighs in mud. Thankfully we got him and the spawn out and this is the result. 16 years later the decendants of those frogs come back and lay in our pond and hopefully feast on the slugs around the garden.