Kicking off this new thread with pics from my pond tonight ... very mild & light rain, actually went out to put fresh food & water out for Hoggies as I'd read that it was mild enough for them to come out of hibernation ... imagine my surprise to discover these critters
One changed position
Looks to me as if the coupling is male on female ... what do you think!
Didn't have any females last year!
Saw some pics of spawn on FB last night at Lennon Legacy Project on the edge of Dartmoor!
2013 photos & vids here
eff37 on Flickr
A few from today. We're much further behind up here, some of this only arrived yesterday.
Doesn't look much, but there's actually loads of spawn here. The most we've had to date in the pond. :-)
One of two football sized clumps under the water. If they all hatch it's going to be chaos.!!
One of the six causes of the potential chaos.!!
There's still lots of movement in the pond even as I type this, so I'll not be surprised if there's even more spawn tomorrow.
My bird photos HERE
Paul A said:If they all hatch it's going to be chaos.!!
Not to worry PA, when they develop leg stumps the turn carniverous & munch on each other!
Each mating pair produces two clumps usually!
Lovely clear photos Paul.
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler
Thanks, Mike.
WendyBartter said:Not to worry PA, when they develop leg stumps the turn carniverous & munch on each other!
Thanks for the potential nightmares, Wendy. :-)
I was ok last night though, (I dreamed I won 35 million on the the lottery, and also that I found a young stripey cat alive and well under the flooring in my loft ??)
I already have two idiots cats already, so I'll maybe just take the first dream.!! :-)
I got the frogs on the 1st and they say toads follow a couple of weeks behind. Actually it was the 19th.
You can see the frogs were there first from the spawn, but these are definitely toads - wonderful eyes they have
And they come in all sorts of flavours: I think these three from left to right are apple, strawberry and avocado
I've looked for others since but never seen any other evidence yet, although there were loads in this pond
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Nige Flickr
Date 31 March 2020, the tadpoles have hatched and feeding well on the sacs....
And the fish are too busy keeping warm....
I was lucky enough to have a brief moment of ideal photographic sun yesterday, and managed to crop a photo sufficiently to get a closer image of the taddies.