Are there any frogspawn experts out there

Last week, my neighbours somewhat neglected pond was full of frogs and toads, the noise coming from it put McCartneys frog chorus to shame.
My stepson has been carefully retrieving any frog or toad that he’s found in the road on his ‘adventures’ and we ended up with a small toad in our pond.
The racket that this thing made was incredible, so the mob next door seem to have come under the fence to join him, well our pond is deeper, cleaner and full of plants.
It is now a seething mass of frogs and toads, the amount of frogspawn has started to displace the water, as I write they are all croaking away, and it tends to go on all night. Our dogs think it’s wierd and sit there staring at them.
I don’t know what Mr Pike thinks of all this, I presume he knows he’s in for a good feast, I’m surprised he hasn’t had a go at the frogs yet, maybe he has, theres so many that one missing wouldn’t be noticed.
I don’t know what the growth rate in frogs is over a year, but I doubt that any of these are the original offspring from our last years tadpoles, I also gather that the survival rate amongst tadpoles is incredibly low, ie if you have a typical pond full of frogspawn, only about 10 frogs will hop off into the wild, and what will their survival rate be.

But, any that do survive, plus the ones now domestically set up in your pond…..will be back next year to lay more.

Beautiful creatures, but can be a pest when too many.

Last week, my neighbours somewhat neglected pond was full of frogs and toads, the noise coming from it put McCartneys frog chorus to shame.
My stepson has been carefully retrieving any frog or toad that he’s found in the road on his ‘adventures’ and we ended up with a small toad in our pond.
The racket that this thing made was incredible, so the mob next door seem to have come under the fence to join him, well our pond is deeper, cleaner and full of plants.
It is now a seething mass of frogs and toads, the amount of frogspawn has started to displace the water, as I write they are all croaking away, and it tends to go on all night. Our dogs think it’s wierd and sit there staring at them.
I don’t know what Mr Pike thinks of all this, I presume he knows he’s in for a good feast, I’m surprised he hasn’t had a go at the frogs yet, maybe he has, theres so many that one missing wouldn’t be noticed.
I don’t know what the growth rate in frogs is over a year, but I doubt that any of these are the original offspring from our last years tadpoles, I also gather that the survival rate amongst tadpoles is incredibly low, ie if you have a typical pond full of frogspawn, only about 10 frogs will hop off into the wild, and what will their survival rate be.

Wouldn’t it be simpler just to drain the pond.….or nearly drain it and go in with a net?

As for sticklebacks living in ponds, a friend of mine caught a stickleback in his local stream when he was about eight, brought it home, put it in his garden pond and forgot about it…

…twelve years later when I helped him drain the pond and fill it in we removed the goldfish and last of all…..one stickleback! 😉

To quote the old saying “When you’re up to your ar5e in Aligators, the last objective is to drain the swamp” 🙂

Good news on that ‘back. If all other conditions are OK, I guess the moving water doesn’t matter.

A friend of mine has a Plecostomus in his pond. (Yep, the tropical catfish). They accept water down to 55 deg F, but it still seems to live through the British winters.
It is now about 15 inches long, cruises round like a Nuclear sub. Keeps the Algae and other wayward plants down, which is its job in life.

Wouldn’t it be simpler just to drain the pond…..or nearly drain it and go in with a net?

As for sticklebacks living in ponds, a friend of mine caught a stickleback in his local stream when he was about eight, brought it home, put it in his garden pond and forgot about it…

…twelve years later when I helped him drain the pond and fill it in we removed the goldfish and last of all…..one stickleback! 😉

The Pike will eat everything you put in that pond, catch it and release it.

Well, it’s nearly spring, that time of the year, the Blue **** are eyeing the nesting boxes, the primroses and daffodils are out, the council have chosen to start destroying the local wildlife habitat again and next doors pond is full of frogs and toads.
I tydied up my pond on saturday, rearranged the plants and stocked it up with dafnia, shrimps and bloodworms.
Guess what, that bloody Pike is still in there, even more furtive than ever and much bigger. What could it possibly have fed on during the winter months, there’s only snails in there, the odd Heron perhaps, bloody hell this pond is only about 2m in diameter and 750 max depth, I can only assume that it’s been catching small birds that bathe in there, after all our Nuthatch has vanished recently. I’m waiting for Mr Rat’s tail to float to the surface soon, even my dogs could be at risk.
My missus reckons it should stay, but it ain’t going to do the local frog population a lot of good and trying to catch it seems impossible, what bait do you reccomend for my fishing rod as it’s the only way I’m going to catch it I reckon.

We moved to our new house at the beginning of the year, it’s only got a small garden but we are blessed with having the River Blackwater conservation area on the other side of the fence.
A few weeks ago I built a pond, not particularly big, but quite deep, terraced and stocked with aquatic plants, as the season is only just starting, we haven’t been able to fill it with the appropriate wild life yet, I did this at my previous house and it flourished, with a healthy population of minnows, sticklebacks, snails etc etc.
There’s a small pond next door which has contained the most amazing number of frogs for a while now, the racket they make is unbelievable.
Only one bothered to visit us so we imported some frogspawn from the in-laws pond. Unfortunately the cold snap last week didn’t do us any favours, but the frogspawn has survived it. It is now a dirty brown floating lump with a big black wriggling mass in the middle of it. Do I leave the tadpoles to get on with it, they look trapped to me, and assuming they survive, what do tadpoles eat, as the pond is not properly established yet.
I did buy some freshwater shrimps, dafnia and bloodworms from Wyevales in the hope that they might get established, presumably they will form a food source as the tadpoles get bigger. Any suggestions.
Incidentally, the bird life here is amazing, it seems to be a balance of rural and urban, I was surprised to see a reed bunting pecking around the pond yesterday.

You could ask this bloke. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

I’ll get me coat shall I.

Mark

Thought some of you keen types might be interested in saturdays sighting.
I was sitting on our smoking stool outside the back door on saturday afternoon when a large bird flew low over the garden and landed over the fence by the river, it was an egret, lovely bird, seen them a few times before, but didn’t expect to see one in Braintree.
We have an abundance of Greater Spotted Woodpeckers at the moment, they arrive in pairs and bash hell out of our telegraph pole, one was sitting in the tree at the bottom of the garden a few minutes ago then went for the pole.
On friday, madam came home for her usual lunchtime repast, was sitting on the smoking stool and said ‘Wow, a wierd bird has landed on the bird table and just flown off’, what did it look like, ‘ Well sort of greyish blue, red and with a distinct black eyebrow. Out came the book, Aaah, a Nuthatch, as we spoke, it landed 20ft away and decided to have a bash at our special Robin mix, if you have bird feeders, this is the best food for everything, try it.
I have a very large glazed patio door in our dining room which looks right down over the garden and beyond with the bird table only 20ft away, I’ve positioned the laptop so I can watch and record at the same time, when I started writing this we were inundated by Goldfinches, but the Starlings have just taken over the feeders, unusually.
It’s a fantastic day, cloudless sky, but not frosty, I’ll take the dogs for a walk soon and see what we can spot by the river, I still haven’t seen Mr Otter, though the neighbours have.

Now that winter is well and truly on us, yes, I got caught in a blizzard in Nottingham last weekend, everything was white over, amazing really,
I thought I’d do an update.
Last month, the local council in their wisdom decided to cut the wild area over the fence, had I not stopped the tractor driver, he would have cleared everything down to the river, not good considering that we have evidence of otters down there. All the nettles have gone along with their cover and precious butterfly larvae, as has the nesting site of our rare reed buntings.
Why, well I gather that some rich old boy decided that it spoiled his view, though the council have come up with all sorts of stupid reasons for doing this. So I appeared in the local paper etc etc, but it hasn’t been resolved yet, I’ve not been well the past month either, but I’ll have to start a bit more wingeing I reckon.
The pike is still in the pond, we can’t catch it, what it eats is anybodies guess, I can only assume it grabs any small frog that comes along.
I was clearing out some weed last week and found some huge waterboatman, obviously not on the menu for Mr Pike.
I have to rush off now, the stable doors need fixing, just the weather for banging about outside.

Saw a woodpecker today, the first of the year, and it looked just like they are supposed to, all green and red but a bit scruffy with it. It was just sitting by the side of the road and didn’t even move when I drove (slowly) past.

Do woodpeckers eat carrion? I know they are supposed to eat grubs and things but the road in question always has lots of rabbits on it, and usually quite a few which have been run over.

Interesting development.
While we were on holiday, Liz’s dad stayed here to look after the dogs, good move for him, he could do what he pleased.
One day, he let the dogs out and wandered down the pond to see his mate the pike, Meg the spaniel went to have a drink out the pond and was startled by a grass snake, curled up and enjoying the sun, it reared up, hissed at her and hid under the sweet peas, Meg was terrified.
Haven’t seen it yet, but the weather has been crap, too much happening in a small garden.
The woodpeckers are still knocking hell out of the telegraph pole, the bats are going mental every night, but we have a lack of butterflies and large moths, the bees are also missing, very worrying.
Could be a good brewing of elderberry wine though.

Liz’s old man came round on Wednesday, he stood at the bottom of the garden and said in his best Hungarian accent, ‘bloody hell Pete, that li’l old pikes getting big’
PIKE, but it’s gone, no way, the little or rather 150mm long monster was trying to get at the dragonfly larva. It then vanished and despite my best efforts since, I can’t find it anywhere.
How it’s survived, and what it’s eating is beyond me, all I want to do is get it back in the river so it can have a nice life.

My big grouse this week is that poor bloody bull in the Hindu temple. Ok, it’s got TB, can this be treated, probably, does it mix with other animals, nooo, did it look ill and unhappy, noooo, was it loved and looked after, yesssss.
Bloody Min of Ag and the filth are simply jobsworths, they should be put down, along with all the other scumbags that destroyed all the animals at our local kids farmyard during the foot and mouth incident, those particular animals had as much chance of contracting it as a blue whale in the Atlantic, the effect round here was devastating, and I heard on the grapevine that it was a mistake. B#######

Thats interesting HC, so these under developed taddies are likely to survive the winter then. We’ve found some spots down the river where there are shoals of minnows, we are contemplating having a dunk, now that the Pike has gone.
We had another visitor last night, I’ve suspected rats under the shed and what looked like a baby appeared and was scrounging for bird seed, he must be brave knowing there was a Jack Russell about, and in no uncertain terms, Scooby made his presence felt, mind you, he thinks it’s a rabbit, silly sod, we’ll see what happens next, he can only get his nose under the shed floor.

Enjoying the Thread

Whats up with you lot, I don’t get any feedback anymore.
Just to say, I have tadpoles in the pond that are just, well, tadpoles.
Are some of them not able to develop, if so, what happens to them.

In answer to your question Pete, those tadpoles that DON’T develop, will go through to next year, & in all probability be stroger than some , or many of next years crop !
Have witnessed that with some of my ‘own-crop’

When they hatch, they DO eat the jelly/membrane (in April) that has encased them throughout March (or Feb), when they 1st appear.

Usually, the ‘mass-brakout’ of ‘Great-Escape’ proportions, occurs in mid June, when thunderstorms or wet spells occur.

I’ve been studying ’em within the confines of my Small front garden pond over the last 4 – 5 years, which has given birth to thousands of the little ******s – they end up all different shades of green & black, & at one time, it wasn’t unusual, to have 6 or 7 adults close by.

Two summers ago, we watched five couples (10 frogs) as mating pairs, with the Males pushing the Girlies around like a Hoover !!!!!! (fun to watch !!!!)

Sadly this year, I’ve had our worst crop/batch, as the pond has become over-run by ‘Oxygenating-Plant’, that has run amok, since we put just 5 – 6 pieces in last August (it took root in the clay/silt, that came from various ‘Lilies’).

Your little froglets will always stand a better chance of NOT getting picked off if you provide next years batch, with more rockery & various low-lying shrubs.

When I was married (last years crop), we picked up literally hundreds of the tiny weeny froglets in our hands, & dispersed them to the edge of the garden – off the lawn, & into the cover of rocks & under coniferous plants, in order so their ranks weren’t decimated by the usual Blackbirds & Thrushes.

Luckily, we are swamped with Goldfinch, & Greenfinch, & the neighbours cat is chased (on 3 occasions so far !) by my massive White Alsatian !!!!!!!
(the Blackbirds LOVE him, going right up to him, when he’s dozing !)

B.T.W. Pete, love the thread, & ‘Creaking Door’s pic’s – also ‘New-Forest’s comparitive comments, about whats happening, nature-wise, in Germany.

Sorry about the tennis rant Newforest, but I hate it with a vengeance.
My ex wife was/is a fanatic, all normal life used to cease during Wimbledon fortnight. I remember some epic final many years ago, probably involving Borg/ McEnroe/ Connors when she invited half the road round to watch it and I preferred to rebuild the fireplace instead, probably starting the first hints of divorce in the process.
My best mate is also similarly affected, he tried to give me lessons, but my heart wasn’t in it, there’s only one sport, as far as I’m concerned, thats worth seriously playing, and thats cricket, it’s a team sport, mostly courteous, with loads of traditions, and quite frankly, the dogs.
Not only that, but apart from football and middle distance running, something I was quite good at. It’s a bit sad when you get too old for these sort of things.
Apart from that, not much happening on the wildlife front, we did have something very large and noisy scrabbling at the fence a few nights ago, I presume it was Mr Fox, the dogs did not attempt to go out and intervene, unusually. We also had a massive formation of swifts overhead one night that I estimated at being over a hundred, the RSPB seem to feel that they are on the decline.

Whats up with you lot, I don’t get any feedback anymore.
Just to say, I have tadpoles in the pond that are just, well, tadpoles.
Are some of them not able to develop, if so, what happens to them.

Chill out Pete.As posted earlier,I check in here EVERY Sunday,a task that I very much look forward to.
Due to me working a permanent night shift,my contact with the local flora and fauna is very limited.When I look out of the window at work,I’m lucky to see a cat or a fox or the security guy walking around with his torch.
Please keep on doin’ watcha doin’:D

Whats up with you lot, I don’t get any feedback anymore.
Just to say, I have tadpoles in the pond that are just, well, tadpoles.
Are some of them not able to develop, if so, what happens to them.

Looks like survival of the fittest, they do not need human intervention. If you want feedback, I didn’t like your tennis rant!:D

Whats up with you lot, I don’t get any feedback anymore.
Just to say, I have tadpoles in the pond that are just, well, tadpoles.
Are some of them not able to develop, if so, what happens to them.

Further reports from the pond.

The Pike have dissapeared, just vanished, I suspect that a Heron may have paid a call, we have quite a few in the area, apart from that, the various inhabitants are thriving and a group of whirlygig beetles have appeared from nowhere.
More interesting have been the reed buntings.
Apparently listed as condition red and dissapearing by the RSPB, the female was visiting the bird table at 20 second intervals. I traced the nest to a clump of marsh grass about 50m over the otherside of our fence, no, I didn’t go near it.
While the female was taking seeds off the table, the male was trawling the bushes for insects and grubs, so we bought a special insect food mix and put it out for them, we’ve never seen parents work so hard
We have’nt seen them for a few days so the brood must have flown, I was surprised to find them nesting so close to houses, we got very worried about the local cats and drunken youths on their way back from the wine bar.
They have since been replaced on the table by constant visits by a pair of corn buntings, another surprise, I have’nt tracked their nest yet.
Having lived in a village for years, we are surprised by the variety of birdlife that we get in downtown Braintree, it must be a very eco friendly place.

Not much happening at the moment, I keep waiting for the dragonfly larvae to emerge, unless that pike has got them. He’s on his way this week, we’re having a midsummer eve fishing session down the river and he’ll be taken down there and released.
We have a telegraph pole at the bottom of the garden, a large Tawny Owl decided to take residence the other night, our Jack Russell went absolutely mental, he must have good eyesight to spot it.
Apart from that, the Reed Buntings are regular visitors, mainly the female, they obviously have a nest nearby.
One problem we have is that the froglets are all over the place and it’s difficult to spot them in the grass, it had to be cut very carefully over the weekend.