Frog Blog'11 - Part 5 - All croaked out

Activity of spawning continues in the pond as I type this on Tuesday night, but it has tailed off now.  There are still about ten pairs at it, and there are now over thirty clumps of spawn.  I guess it really will be a bumper year.

Checking out the pond last night with the torch, the Smooth Newts are very active now, and I will be checking out for their eggs very soon, now I know where and how to look for them, having done an Amphibian Surveying Course last weekend with the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust

Here are a quick couple of images that I took with the new 5Dmk2 and Canon 180 f3.5L - a really stunning combination of quality and sharpness.  I am really looking forward to this years 'close up' season.

You can see the fruits of his labours just in front of him just under the water surface

Martin

Frog Blog '11 - Part 4 - A Frog's Moon

As I mentioned in my last post, they have finally started to spawn.  Well in just 24 hours we went from just the four clumps I previously mentioned to 28 clumps, beating last years total already, and they are still at it.  

It is going to be a busy year in the garden with mini frog traffic if they make it.  Which leads mean to my next tale.

Tonight is going to the brightest moon for two decades apparently according to this story.  Here in Stratford we were blessed with clear skies so I popped outside with the camera and got this image.

With the 7D, 500f4 + 1.4 on tripod, ISO 100, f9 and 1/125 if you fancy a go.  I pulled the expose back in Capture One, reduced the brightness and upped the contrast to explore some of the wonderful detail.

With this level of natural brightness, I have seen more detail from this image than many other similar type shots.

Click to see it at 800 pixels

Why last night and not tonight? - well it might not be clear tonight so worth getting it in the bank as it were.

But check it out in your area of the world and give it a crack - as it will be the brightest now for a long time to come.

So linking back to my earlier question about whether the new frogs make it.  Well it was crystal clear last night and we had another sharpish frost with temperatures down to minus 4.5 Deg C this morning when I went out at 6 AM looking for Hares locally.

Some of the spawn is exposed to the air and was a little bit crunchy when I got back, so I swilled some pond water over it to warm it up.  Fingers crossed.

Checking back to last year, they were at a similar stage on the 28th March, so we are ahead by ten days this year.  It took a further 12 days before we had swimmers, so on that basis we should be looking at the end of March before the first tadpoles emerge.

I am off on an Amphibian Surveying Workshop later today with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust to brush up on my knowledge and learn a few things.

Hope you have a good weekend

Martin

Frog Blog'11 - Part 2 - They went deep and are now back again

Shortly after I wrote this blogpost of the first serious frog show of the year almost two weeks ago, the weather went much colder again.  A few overnight frosts and a couple of quick ice overs of the pond thwarted the amorous croaky ones ardour.

Well it has warmed up again over the last couple of days and they are back in serious numbers.  When I wrote this blog on Thursday night, I had a listen out for the chorus but couldn't hear anything.  So  I grabbed my binocs at about ten o'clock, stuck my LED Lenser pen touch in my mouth and looked up the garden.  Well what a bizarre and welcome sight.  Over twenty light, bright pairs of dots looking back at me, as the frogs were on the surface.  I guess there must have been many more as I could only see those that were looking in my direction..  I guess it will be very soon that the first spawn appears.  I have heard stories of many other locations with spawn, but given the frosts we had here it is probably just as well they hung back a bit.

Martin