Spring is Sprung: Frog Spawn Season

If you are lucky, by now our Common Frog will have laid clumps of eggs in your garden pond and, as the weather continues to warm up, these eggs will quickly turn to tadpoles.

Go and check for frog spawn – there is already plenty of frog spawn in Tattenhall.

Frogs often lay large numbers of eggs. Whilst this might seem excessive, it is to ensure that not only does some of the spawn survive, but also that some of the tadpoles actually become froglets. At this critical time in their lives, however, they provide a tasty meal for a range of pond predators including fish, dragonfly larvae and newts.

It is estimated that only one in fifty of the eggs laid will actually make it out of the pond as a froglet.

Frogs are having a hard time! Regrettably, the impact of modern agricultural practices, the loss of ponds and amphibian disease mean that our native frog is no longer that 'common'.

All of our garden ponds, therefore, have an important role to play in their conservation. This photograph was taken in one of the ponds manged by TWiG (click on image to enlarge).