Nature on Your Doorstep Community

A place to learn, share and inspire others to create a haven for you and for wildlife.

Sign In or Register to join the conversation

Froggie

Here is a lovely picture of one of the many frogs to my fish pond;

  • That's a nice shot Sandra.  It's always amazes me how they really do sit on lily pads.  Are they very tame?  We have one that likes to have water from the hose pipe sprinkled over its head as it hangs suspended in the pond and another will sit real close while I do the weeding. 

  • Thanks, it's the 1st time I've seen one on a lilly pad. They are quite tame, some you can stroke. Although I do have quite a lot & they can become a worry during their breeding season, I lost one fish this year to a frog!

  • Hi San

    I love your picture - I didn't know they could be so tame.  We have plenty of frogs in our garden but we don't have a pond.  We have a water feature that sits stagnant during the colder months and which the cat loves to drink from but that's it.  I did however last winter found one frog frozen in it.   I had actually gone out there to thaw the water as the cat will only drink from there and not from the water bowl I leave inside.  So you can imagine my surprise to find Freddy staring out at me floating in the ice.  Not really sure what I should do, I poured hot water over the ice to slowly melt it, my first thought was to smash the ice with a hammer - sooo glad I didn't do that!  I couldn't believe what I saw when the water become a slushy consistency the frog started to move and swam to the bottom!  Afterwards I looked on the internet re. "frozen frogs" and was amazed to learn that frogs can will survive in frozen water, slowly lowering their body temperature and entering a semi coma state, reviving in the spring once the water temperature rises.

  • Hi Sandra - great photos. As I have mentioned in another thread I have a couple of frogs who spend much of the summer in my yard behind my tubs. Perhaps they are picketing for a pond as there is no water feature / pond / etc. in my or either of my immediate neighbours' gardens. They do tend to make ME jump if THEY suddenly jump because I have unwittingly disturbed them so I think I need to consider providing more suitable accommodation for them.

    The necessity of bird-watching is a really good reason for avoiding all forms of housework.

    The dust will still be there tomorrow - the birds may not be!

  • [Hi

    Glad you liked my picture. Yes frogs are pretty amazing! I heard they can shut their bodies down, especially in very dry countries they can survive dormant for years until rain comes.

    So glad to hear that it's not only my cat that won't drink tap water. I have a container in the garden that collects rain water & is green sometimes, but that's the way he likes it!!! I presume they can smell all the chlorine/chemicals in tap water??]

    Hi San

    I love your picture - I didn't know they could be so tame.  We have plenty of frogs in our garden but we don't have a pond.  We have a water feature that sits stagnant during the colder months and which the cat loves to drink from but that's it.  I did however last winter found one frog frozen in it.   I had actually gone out there to thaw the water as the cat will only drink from there and not from the water bowl I leave inside.  So you can imagine my surprise to find Freddy staring out at me floating in the ice.  Not really sure what I should do, I poured hot water over the ice to slowly melt it, my first thought was to smash the ice with a hammer - sooo glad I didn't do that!  I couldn't believe what I saw when the water become a slushy consistency the frog started to move and swam to the bottom!  Afterwards I looked on the internet re. "frozen frogs" and was amazed to learn that frogs can will survive in frozen water, slowly lowering their body temperature and entering a semi coma state, reviving in the spring once the water temperature rises.

    [/quote "Kemzo"]

     

     

  • Your tame frogs amazed me, the frogs that visit my garden are not at all tame, in fact it’s very difficult to spot them, the slightest movement and they disappear. Last breeding season I rigged up a temporary hide so I could watch them. I counted 48 frogs but as soon as I stepped from behind the hide they all disappeared.

    Build it and they will come.

  • We used to live near a railway station - one summer's day when me and my sister got off the train from work we were amazed to find literally thousands of baby frogs strewn across the platform.  As the train pulled out of the station, we could see another thousand or so at the bottom where the train tracks were sited.  It was awful there were people getting off the train and trying desparately not to tread on them and there were others who really didn't care and trod all over them.

    The station was directly opposite from where we lived so we knew the staff pretty well. We stopped and chatted to the station master and he had been filling buckets all day trying to save as many as he could.  He had never seen anything like it in the 20 years he had been the station master.   There was marshy bogland to the west of the tracks and a river 100 yards or so to the east.  I suppos it must have been a perfect year for frog spawn and the area around the station was litterally awash with frogs.

     

  • Wow! That must have been some sight Kezmo! Hats off to the station master for doing his best for them! I couldn't tread on them though....

    "All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)

    My photos on Flickr

  • I'm with you MarJus - no way would I tread on them. When OH and I visited the Amateur Gardening Show (Shepton Mallet) one year, we were walking (well, staggering really) back across the field to the car at the end of a very long day and there were loads of tiny frogs in the field. OH and I were zig-zagging all over the place to avoid them. Probably walked nearly twice the distance we would have, had the frogs not been there.

    The necessity of bird-watching is a really good reason for avoiding all forms of housework.

    The dust will still be there tomorrow - the birds may not be!

  • Lol Squirrel! Hope there wasn't a beer tent nearby, othewise people would have been thinking all sorts!!

    "All weeds are flowers, once you get to know them" (Eeyore)

    My photos on Flickr