flippin' frogs (1 Viewer)

[CWH]

Back at the end of November I asked for advice about clearing in & around ponds when there were still tadpoles & froglets around. Well, I left them for a bit to either grow up or die off. We've had nearly a frost; snow; hail; even a tornado. I hoped I could get around to it now, but hey-ho! went & had a look today and...

Do I just go ahead & grit my teeth to the collateral damage?

 

[old-mo]

Flog them to Frankie (Yodeli)....

She may have her work cut out trying to get her teeth into the big boy..

 

[CWH]

Flog them to Frankie (Yodeli)....

good idea
though we do like to encourage our frogs coz they eat the destructive snails ...

... ah, I see a theme developing here! Broken Link Removed

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[movan]

Crumbs..... your weather must be really clement ..... I didn't think there were tadpoles at this time of year..... at least your fish will have some protein over winter ... Your pond is very clean .. what filter do you use?

 

[Madwife]

Saw a squashed frog on the road yesterday - it must have come out if hiding as it was raining.

Kath

 

[CWH]

Crumbs..... your weather must be really clement ..... I didn't think there were tadpoles at this time of year..... at least your fish will have some protein over winter ... Your pond is very clean .. what filter do you use?

no fish...
no filter... totally au naturel
rain till it overflows - why it's clear
full of leaves - why I want to clean it out!

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[Puddleduck]

Maybe rake the leaves up and put them in a net of some sort at one side of the pond to allow any tadpoles or froglets to escape back into the water?

 

[CWH]

Maybe rake the leaves up and put them in a net of some sort at one side of the pond to allow any tadpoles or froglets to escape back into the water?

that's a good idea, I'm sure I can find something to do that with, thanks!

 

[Jon and Debs]

Blimey that's not right. Taddies shouldn't be even a twinkle in Froggies eyes yet. I usually wait until the frogs have spawned, take the spawn out and place in large squashy buckets whilst I clean the pond and then rear the taddies on to froglets before I release them in the marshy area of the pond. When you clean the pond you will doubtless find a multitude of Frogs but just put em in a bucket and let em go when the pond has been cleaned. The reason I rear the taddies into Frogs is because the spawn and taddies get eaten by my fish if I put them back in after cleaning the pond out. I would delay cleaning the pond until mid-late March when the Frogs or Toads have all spawned. Do your bit for the wildlife environment. If you decide to rear the taddies, feed em on small bits of cat or dog food, clean the water every week and don't put them in full sun. I did cook a batch one warm spring !!

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[Deleted34567]

If your going to France.....
Well......
Money to be made !

 

[CWH]

I usually wait until the frogs have spawned

That's the problem - there's always SOMEthing going on with the frogs/ froglets!
It's just a very VERY small plastic pond with a few waterboatmen & other bugs & whoever else decides to move in (no fish) and to be honest they'll have to look after themselves, but I want to remove silt & layers of leaves, & to clear the long grasses nearby where the froglets tend to hide - but I don't want to risk killing them off, or leaving them exposed to weather & birds.
Thanks all for some great advice & no, I'm NOT going to eat the little darlin's!!!

 

[mitzimad]

dont worry about the frogs the crows and magpies will deal with them

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[DBK]

You have missed the time to clear out the pond, the frogs start spawning in January here in the South West although the exact time depends on the weather and if it is a very cold winter they will delay spawning.

The time to clear out the pond was October or November. There may still be tadpoles overwintering, this is quite common if they don't get enough food to complete their development in one season but the trick is to leave any rubbish you dredge out from the bottom on the side of the pond for a day or so to allow things to wriggle back home.

I would wait until the end of the year but you could move any spawn you have now into a bucket, using a little net, and take it to another pond. The frogs spawned over quite a long period where we used to live so even if you move the spawn now you could get more in a few weeks.

Cleaning out the pond completely will of course remove most of their food so the tadpoles won't develop but their corpses will provide protein for the next generation!

 

[CWH]

their corpses will provide protein for the next generation

aaawwwww!!!

leave any rubbish you dredge out from the bottom on the side of the pond

I might do this a bit at a time, put in a basket or net as @Puddleduck suggested; & leave some of the litter in for food along with the algae & grasses that hang into the water. We do have a 'wildlife-friendly' garden (ie neglected) but from time to time bits of it need to have a bit of management...!

 

[DBK]

You can feed tadpoles once they get bigger. The pellets you can get for goldfish will float on the surface and as they become soft the tadpoles will come up to the surface and nibble at them - propelling the pellets across the water as they do so, which is fun to watch. When they are small the tadpoles tend to hide in weed or on the bottom and eat algae. As they become older they become carnivorous!

I would be surprised if you don't have damselfly or even dragonfly larva in the pond as well so look out for those when you clean it out.

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[CWH]

They're coming along nicely!
(One batch of at least 5)

 

[Puddleduck]

Just shows how much more advanced the weather is down your way than up here.

 

[CWH]

Just shows how much more advanced the weather is down your way than up here.

Oh yes!
Yesterday, on the grass verge...

In the delightful village of

And today...

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[Puddleduck]

Snowdrops here. We don't tend to get a good show of primula as there isn't really a long spring - our weather tends to go from winter to summer with just a mild week or two at some point.

Sunset a few days ago, photo taken from a window ..... the white in the hedgerow is snow btw.

 

[CWH]

Update on the taddies - they have legs!

 

[Ockerron]

Oh dear! Our neighbour has a lovely pond, but always produces vast amounts of frogs! Now I don't have anything against frogs per se, but I do have four cats and they LOVE to play with frogs! They don't eat them, just bring them in and play, although I doubt it's so much fun for the poor froggies! I seem to spend hours chasing the little buggers about to catch them and return them to next door's garden. And don't they squeal! I couldn't believe the noise! I missed one at some point and discovered it's mummified remains inside a rarely worn shoe!

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[CWH]

When we got back from our week away there seemed to be no sign of life from the pond, I wondered if it had been 'fished out' by cats or seagulls. BUT - I just got in from my day in the Big Smoke & saw this chappie on the drive.
I know it's an absolutely rubbish photo but it proves at least one of them survived!

 

[DavidG58]

Its really odd, same happens here, for about 4 weeks we have a mass of frogs in our pond, then overnight the whole lot vanish

Our frogspawn is still being laid though, had a few more clumps last night and frogs still around croaking when it is warm enough

we also regularly get tadpoles that do not develop legs and over winter as tadpoles, never really sure what does happen to them

Or blackbirds take a lot of the tadpoles before they even get legs, I also spotted one of our cats drinking water from pond, but when I looked closer he was eating the frogspawn, little sod and truly YUK

 

[DBK]

Yes, it's a rubbish photo! But that didn't come from your recent tadpoles, if that was what you meant, they will still be deep in the pond at this time of year. When they do emerge as tiny froglets the size of your fingernail it won't be before June. The adult in you watercolour is probably a male looking for some wet action. Spawning in March is not unusual. And they are different frogs to the ones which arrived earlier in the year.

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[CWH]

We do have lots of (welcome) blackbirds and (unwelcome) cats 58, so either could be guilty. I'll be even more vigilant and at the ready with my water-pistol now.
I didn't think my taddies could have got so big so quickly DBK, but I haven't seen any titchy ones about yet and I'm hopeless at remembering timescales so I wasn't sure what I've missed! This frog isn't as big as the ones I've seen piled up in the pond so I wasn't sure about anything... if they're different ones, that makes a lot of sense - a bit after I took the "photo" there was a bit of a noise going on and a few more were hanging out on the drive. Disco-frog? Frog orgy?
What was cool though, when the car first turned in the drive & the headlights hit the guy (or gal...), he sat up on his haunches with his chin turned up so he was showing his big pale belly to the threat, with his little arms stuck up to make himself even bigger. Cute or what!
Anyway don't be rude about my photography skills... I was very very tired and never thought to change the settings on the camera.

 

[DBK]

Your camera was probably on the "toad" setting which gives a soft focus. Toads don't do closeups well.

 

[CWH]

Just been out prowling in the dark and caught this (2 of 'em ambling about in the pond)

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[DBK]

Poop, Poop! I think that's a toad. Good photography! Check for spawn in long strings tomorrow or the day after - assuming he finds a Mrs Toad.

 

[CWH]

So... will the toads eat the baby frogs, or the frogs eat the baby toads DBK, or do the parents beggar off once they've spawned?
I seem to remember reading that they're not supposed to exist in the same pond but we have had both before. Frogs every year, but toads not so often.

 

[DBK]

I am fairly sure the different tadpoles don't eat each other although it might perhaps happen with sixth form taddies and first formers, so to speak. Would need to dig out my book on amphibians to check, though a few keystrokes on Mr Google would probably be quicker. Nothing you can do about it anyway, what happens will happen.

And yes the parents abandon the offspring at the moment of conception. At least with our native frogs and toads. Some other species in foreign places are different.

The midwife toad for example looks after its young - and apparently they breed here in the UK. Broken Link Removed

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