In April I posted about the amount of frog spawn in our pond and wondered whether any would survive becoming fish fodder. One of the reasons creatures such as frogs produce so many eggs or offspring is to take into account predation. The more enemies the creature has seems to correlate to how many potential young they produce - nature's survival mechanism!
We didn't see much in the way of tadpole activity so were not too hopeful but a few days ago when Martyn was mowing the lawn he noticed movement in the grass and there trying to avoid any encounter with a lawn mower was this little guy/gal.
If you look closely you can see that its toes are almost transparent! Just to give some idea of the size I put my finger into the shot. I do have fairly small hands too!
Before Martyn could finish mowing the lawn I moved our little friend into a border where it could forage in relative safety.
It wasn't very keen to be picked up but once sitting on my hand it wasn't in any hurry to leave and needed a gentle push to send it on its way.
And all the time we were being watched.
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I am so glad you have survivors and isn't she/he the cutest thing. We have no frogs this year but a few baby fish have appeared in the pond which is a welcome sight. x
ReplyDeleteI haven't noticed baby fish this year yet, Chel and hope the little froglet isn't the one and only one.
DeleteOh I miss having tiny baby frogs in our garden..we haven't seen a single frog now for about 2-3 years and we used to get loads.. so sad :( I do hope they return soon.
ReplyDeleteWe have a regular influx of frogs at the breeding season, Julie but the spawn always seems to disappear and we never notice tadpoles so I presumed the fish ate them all but obviously some so survive.
DeleteLet's hope he/she has inherited a love of eating slugs!
ReplyDeleteOh I do hope so, Mark our problem though is also snails. I wonder whether frogs winkle those out too!
DeleteDelightful, I'm glad you saved the little guy.xxxx
ReplyDeleteSo am I Snowbird - we are always transporting frogs, newts and taods on the plot too
DeleteYou were lucky to spot him, he's so small. We've got loads of frogs in the garden this year, not in the pond as we'd hoped but hiding amongst the potato containers. I can only think that it's cool around there for them in this heat, and they get watered each evening.
ReplyDeleteHe/she was lucky too, Jo. It was the movement that caught Martyn's eye. We did have one year when the lawn was live with them when the mower came out - but that was the year I brought some tadpoles home from school for the holidays and they frogged whilst I had them here.
DeleteHow sweet is that - nice to see Big Momma is keeping her eye on it.
ReplyDeleteI hope he makes it to frog adulthood, Elaine.
DeleteI love to take walks down the canals this time of year where you seem to have moving walk ways as all the tiny frogs emerge...the kids think it's great too. I bet you had more than that one little fellow survive...wonder if you'll spot any more!!
ReplyDeleteI guess where there is one there should be more, Tanya, We;ll be keeping a look out.
DeleteThe baby look cute, not so sure about the mother...
ReplyDeleteI found something in my garden I was quite sure was frog spawn earlier in the spring, but I have never seen any frogs around. I think my garden is too tidy and apart from my bird table I don't have any water either so I guess they hopped to a somewhat friendlier environment!
If you have no water it won't have been frogspawn, Helene. What did it look like?
DeleteIt looked like a pile of small, grey bubbles, each bubble perhaps 4-5 mm across. I found it between some tall daffodil leaves and forgot all about it for weeks, next time I looked it was gone. Not sure what it was, never seen it before and assumed it was frog spawn but perhaps it was something else?
DeleteIt sounds like slug or snail eggs, Helene. See this page on my website which may be of some help.
DeleteWe have toads and finally had a tree frog move in this year. I agree with Tanya. I bet you have more of those cute little frogs than you realize. :o)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we do CM - I hope we do! A tree frog - wow!
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