Sunday 19 February 2012

That time of year again

Well it appears to have been six months since I last blogged here. Last year was a comparatively poor year for wildlife at Frog End, probably due to the cold winter/spring, followed by a drought and then a wet summer. This year I'm determined to get out in the garden more and record the species that I do see.

We've had a very mild winter with only a few frosts and no snow. The pond froze over for a couple of days in January, but apart from that it's been quite warm so I'm hoping that more insects will have survived the winter.

This week the first Frog End frogs began to spawn. The pond has been wriggling for three days (except when it was raining - the frogs didn't seem to like that) and the duckweed has simultaneously begun to clear. There are too many frogs to count, especially as the majority are quite shy and don't like it when I step from the house into the garden.

This photo of them in the shallows was taken from the bathroom window:


A few frogs allowed me to photograph them from the edge of the pond:

6 comments:

holdingmoments said...

Wow, that's a lot of frogs you've got there Helen.

I cleared a lot of the weed from my pond this morning, in readiness for when my frogs start to spawn. (only a small pond)

Scriptor Senex said...

Wow - that's an impressive collection of frogs. I believe the collective noun is an army, colony, knot, or froggery. I'm sure one could think of a better one if one tried!

P.S. Di you know you've still got WV on this blog? Not easy to distinguish...

Helen said...

I like froggery!

I've taken WV off now - thanks for reminding me.

GB said...

That really is an impressive frog photo from the bathroom. I've never seen anything like it before.

Dewi Elliott said...

Wow.. lots of froggies there. There was 21 froggies in our pond when we emptied it.

Ian said...

I found this online game to test your knowledge of collective nouns...