Tadpoles

[andy]

The last two years have been terrible for frogspawn but this year seems to have picked up incredible
I thought I’d try to raise a small clump of spawn in a small, sponge filtered two foot tank in my office.
To say it’s been a success is an understatement.
They are growing at a fantastic rate and are getting through a cucumber every 3 days.
However, tomorrow, they are going to a large wildlife pond (7m x 5m) so hopefully, in a few years, they’ll return to have tadpoles of their own

 

[Cazza]

Love this. We have a couple of incredible wildlife ponds near us, but the main one had no frogspawn this year. Normally loads- really worrying.

 

[Connswater]

main one had no frogspawn

My small wildlife pond has been inundated this year, and last year I saw no evidence of frog fungal disease. And this year there was no frost burn on the surface of the spawn, the frogs spawned later this year by two weeks. Sadly the amount in my pond is overwhelming so I suspect the number of froglets in the summer will be much as per normal, the blackbirds certainly take some of the less mobile tadpoles. I suspect sadly, a neighbour may have filled-in a pond and I have relocation frogs. Disappointingly, still only an occasional newt despite mists of daphnia, the recent sunshine has accelerated tadpole development and created a burst of daphnia population growth. I've been hoping for a newt colony now for 8 years, in my previous home one established fairly quickly, three years perhaps. So many factors at play I suppose.

 

[shangman]

Every year at work in our wildlife garden since I started 3 years ago, we’ve collected a good amount of the frogspawn laid and raise it with the students in my old aquariums. Some also goes to a few local schools and nurseries to raise the tadpoles, and they return them when they’re almost fully developed to go back in the ponds. We have to do it to make sure we have any frogs, as the pond is also home to hundreds and hundreds of newts who think of frogspawn as the finest caviar.

Definitely a LOT more this year than the previous two years, something like 6-8x as much. Very promising, we’ve also had a hell of a lot more insects this year with the sunny weather this week vs the torrential rain last year. We’ve got a lot of watering ahead of us though…

 

[Connswater]

hundreds of newts who think of frogspawn as the finest caviar

Caviar that made me smile.

In reality, I suspect the male newts arrive in time to eat the tadpoles before the tadpoles are large and strongly swimming, the protein I suppose is part of what is needed for the fine crest, they seem to have an inexhaustible appetite for dapnia, and I have seen them eat goldfish pond sticks moving with the wind on the surface of an ornamental pond. I envy you, newts have always been, for hard to fathom reasons, my favourite Mother Nature endorsement of wildlife gardening. The 'common' newt is rare and localised in my native Northern Ireland, and all other species are absent. In Kent, where I lived for some years, Great Crested Newts seemed to be the commonest species, spectacular, if rather large for a modest pond, at least for the comfort of the eye. I had toads in my pond in London, in incredible numbers. I witnessed next door's cat try and eat a toad once, the venom on the skin had the cat leaping and dancing for a few moments, it then left the toad colony alone.

Now here in urban Berkshire, I have to have wire fencing, dark green, plastic coated, an ugly mesh over my pond, large enough to let frogs in but too much for the heron, who sometimes stands on my roof looking down, somewhat demoralised, but though I don't mind some predation, a heron can deplete a small wildlife pond of all the breeding adult frogs at one breakfast. The magpies and jackdaws have been eyeing my goldfish as sushi, in my small formal ornamental patio pond, I actually don't begrudge them one or two medium sized goldfish for hungry chicks but they too can deplete a pond of all but the dark coloured immature fish, but I'm wise to them and have a raised galvanised concrete reinforcing grid over the pond on pebbles, too high for them to reach down to grab a fish, but, they too 'window shop'.

Robins, nuthatches, blackbirds and tits have all been bathing in the shallows of my wildlife pond this season, they seem unperturbed by the plastic mesh.

This is truly a time of year when new life bursts forth, good for the soul. And amphibians are so primeval in some respects, they reinforce our perception of the earthy joy and strength of the life force. Time for a glass of red while the sun is still shining and before the evening turns chilly in the garden.

 

[Aqua sobriquet]

I always found watching Tadpoles transform into Frogs fascinating. On one occasion I bought some Bullfrog Tadpoles from the LFS. They were huge in comparison to native ones.