Another glorious blue sky day (oh for rain) we returned to the wood with our homework: How to nurture a healthy pond? Frog life cycle? Fossils? Sap? Was Amber, a resin, sap? The jury was out on this, and despite trying for 2 weeks to study sap and listen to it rise in the trees, we failed. Instead we got embroiled in the two tribes of frogspawn: The local Holton spawn and the Lowestoft spawn. As one said, classic for West Side Story, there’s bound to be a fight.
Here’s what we put in our basket about Frogs and pond health:
Egg to Frog is 7 weeks or is it 17 weeks
At my girls school we dissected frogs, and I can still smell for formaldehyde on my hands. I hated it.
Sex involves being on top of each other in long lines, and sometimes the female drowns. The male frog has specific sucker pads on its front legs to successfully attach and stay attached to the female.
How long do toads stay underwater?
Tadpoles are eaten by newts, birds, ducks, beetles, and they eat themselves
Tadpoles eat algae and their jelly sack they are born in, and themselves.
Frogs jump and leap (long back legs), Toads walk or hop (shorter fatter back legs) Toads can tolerate drier environments and are often found further from water.
Ponds
Don’t plant in ponds, the plants will arrive themselves
Oxygenating plants will help clear the water
Barley straw, you can get it from the internet in a sack. Leave in water March to September until it turns black 50gms per square meter of pond.
Barley straw does not work, despite the folk lore saying it does
What’s collective noun for frogspawn? A frigate of frogspawn. Here’s AI for you on this
“Frigate”: This word, typically used for a type of warship, suggests a large, imposing, and perhaps even organized group or collection.
“Frogspawn”: This refers to the jelly-like masses of frog eggs that are laid in water.
“A frigate of frogspawn”: Therefore, the phrase paints a picture of a large, impressive, and perhaps even daunting amount of frogspawn, as if a “fleet” or “group” of frog eggs is present.
EVIDENCE today
The sea fairing frogs from Lowestoft looked quite different from the local Holton spawn. They were bigger, more hexagonal in spawn shape. Later we found EVIDENCE of the arrival of the Lowestoft spawn from our wildlife camera: Joe along with Mossip and the young one.
- Marsh marigold
- Tadpoles in saucepan – (used for soup?) – with gills visible.
- Water snail in the other pond
- Remains of an anaconda snake – or perhaps grass snake
- Wind direction clear from the green goopy stuff, blown to side of pond
- spiders
- Reddish newt
- Black Poplars, two nearest doing well and leafing up, the two furthest away still to bud. Male and female difference?
Fossils from the Dead Sea ? and Brighton?
EVIDENCE from the Wildlife Camera
Lowestoft Joe delivering spawn, Sam who is making the fence down at the community garden – what’s he doing up here? And Trevor and Joe from Maydencroft inspecting the trees planted for the EWCO grant. Oh and a woman with 3 dogs.
Kinda Elders in the woods 