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3
03, 2012
Frogs, Blogs and All That Exciting News
Monitoring the Frogs in the Office Pond
Over the years, we at Everything Dinosaur have done our bit to help conserve amphibians by monitoring the progress of frogs and frog spawn in the office pond. The pond was cleaned out by Everything Dinosaur team members and we planted oxygenating pond-weed and other plants around the margins to help provide a habitat for frogs and other small creatures.
Conserve Amphibians
The pond had been established for a couple of years, before we had our first frogspawn laid in it. That was back in 2008 and ever since we have been lucky to have observed frogs spawning every year, and the numbers of frogs in and around the pond seem to be growing. Many ponds have dried up or have been filled in around our neighbourhood, so we are keen to help by providing a little bit of habitat for these creatures. In return, we hope that the frogs will assist us and keep pest numbers down on our newly constructed vegetable garden – we shall wait and see.
Each year we record the date of the first frog activity being spotted in the pond as well as the date of the first frog spawn being laid. This year frogs were seen in the pond around mid-February, roughly the same time as in 2011. Spawn was laid on the 18th March last year, we shall see if the milder winter and the recent warm weather encourages the frogs to spawn a little earlier this year.
They are certainly very active and a number of “frog-orgies”, as we tend to call them have already occurred. We made a short video of the rather amorous frogs “getting it on” as it were in the pond.
Everything Dinosaur’s Frog Frolics Video
Video credit: Everything Dinosaur
Sixteen Frogs
A few days ago we recorded sixteen frogs in the pond at the same time, a record for this location. There are still a number of frogs which have taken up temporary residence, at least five, we think these are males waiting for females to arrive.
In 2010, frogs were first spotted in the pond on the 13th February, although no spawn was laid until the 21st March. The earliest incidence of spawning took place in 2009 when we had frogs laying on the 1st March. We shall see if the frogs spawn early again this year. With all the activity in the recent mild spring-like weather we had anticipated that the frogs would again spawn earlier, but so far no eggs have been laid.
We will just have to keep on watching.
In the meantime, visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.
