Frog Blog '11 - Part 1 - They are back and at it

With the long cold Winter releasing its grip, and some rain last weekend, I saw my first active Frog  for a while.

A couple of nights ago, it was wonderful to listen to the night time frog chorus, and they have been going at it each night.  Twos, threes and even fours together mating.  Walking round the garden in the dark, I had to be careful where I walked as they are all over the place at the moment.

It was raining last night so I took the little Panasonic P & S out to capture a couple of record snaps.  Using a small torch held in my mouth helped the AF work in the dark

As well as the frogs, the pond is now very much alive with dozens of Smooth Newts as well as they too come out of the dormant period of the winter.

I will hopefully take a bit of time to set up with the 5D, macros and a couple of flashguns to get some much better shots in the near future.

Guess it won't be too long before we have spawn.

BTW - forgot to mention - also another two garden first ticks this week - a pair of Tawny Owls and a very noisy Little Owl - fabulous to hear both species

Martin

Frogblog Part 9 - Final part for this year

Regular readers, particularly earlier in the year, will have read my Frogblog series as I updated their progress from mating through to spawn, tadpoles and then froglets.

If you want to check out earlier posts on frogblog, try here.

Well the garden is covered in froglets now - everywhere you go and walk, there they are, little hoppers all over the place, that I try not to tread on.

Today, I did another area of wildflower cutting with my brush cutter.  With a reasonable height of cut, I hope that I didn't kill any of the little things.  Certainly, when I inspected the areas afterwards, there were hundreds of the little things.
 

I also saw a lot of young Smooth newtlets from this years breeding.  

So I am closing frogblog down for this year now, unless I get any more great sightings or photos, then I will, of course share them with you all.

Just a quickie today, as you are getting lots of lovely pictures from Dave's trip to California.

Oh yes and welcome to our 70th follower - Leah Sian photography.  We hope you enjoy our blog, and we welcome your comments and feedback whenever you care to.

Martin

Frog Blog Pt 8 - We have legs

Well after the thousands of tadpoles escaped their spawn and spent quite a while together resting and warming in the shallows, they quickly disappeared.  Now they have either been heavily predated or they have gone to the safety of the depths of the pond.  Having watched the pond a lot recently, I believe they have gone to the depths.  Frequent rises to the surface to breathe makes me think this.  It was while looking at one doing this on Thursday night, I noticed that the back legs have started to appear.  So we are on to the next step of the evolution towards 'frogdom'

Meanwhile, the Smooth Newts are now very active, particularly the one I call 'Patch'.  He is a large male, in beautiful breeding colours with his crested mane showing well.  He has a small very light patch over his left eye, so is eadily identifiable.  He is always courting the ladies at the moment, generally with one or two of last years young watching on - learning tips maybe?

Friday saw the arrival of the first Damselfly in the garden. A male Large red Pyrrhosoma nymphula.  This is the earliest I have seen one  that I can remember, and sent my recording to the British Dragonfly Society, where it seems many are being recorded now.

Not a brilliant shot, but a record of the first one of the year (New 7D and Canon 180 macro)

Martin