Pondlife update – We are with spawn

As long-time Sciencebase readers will know, I resurrected our garden pond in May 2019 (you can read about Operation Sciencebase Pond here). It was too late for the amphibian mating season that year, but, frogs did appear later that summer. in fact, we usually had at least one frog in the garden even when we didn’t have the pond. In 2020, one summer’s evening I counted nine frogs on the rocky border, which was gratifying and a big part of the whole point of redigging our old pond.

Early this year, Mrs Sciencebase spotted a Grey Heron in the garden, twice, preying on frogs from the pond. But, thankfully, there are still several in there and I’ve observed mating behaviour on a couple of evenings recently. There was activity last night and we are now with spawn. It will be a month or so before tadpoles hatch (hopefully). You just know I will keep you posted. #PondLife #PondWatch
If you have frogspawn in your own pond, please consider adding a reference to this spreadsheet, the data is mapped to show where frogspawn is present across the UK by PondDip and how it emerges over time.

Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - March 5, 2021 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: PondLife Source Type: blogs