Frogs and other amphibians

As I mentioned before, I like frogs and consider them my friends. They hop around my legs at night and keep scary insects away from me. In spring they hum a song for me. And they entertain my humans, too. The other day I watched my FH tease some frogs with a grass flower. They thought it was food and jumped really high. Luckily she stopped the teasing before the poor froggies had wasted all their energy on some vegetarian stuff. They really prefer their flies and other juicy insects.

During spring the froggies always produce a lot of spawn. Last year it all got either frozen or eaten by the fish. So this year my FH decided to remove some of the spawn and let it hatch in a tub. Once the tadpoles were big enough (i.e. bigger than the mouths of the fish and newts...), she released them back into the pond. This morning I could see quite a few tiny froglets hopping through the plant jungle around the pond. Success!! Now hopefully those big magpie birds won't eat them all.

When it rains, it's party time for the frogs. During the night they wander all over the garden and my FH has to carry a torch so that she won't step on any of them. They do their job as biological pest controllers in the garden. They have to be careful when foxes or cats come to visit, as they don't say no to a frog, even if they just use it as a toy for a while. Did you know that frogs can scream when they are in danger?

Last year my humans cleaned out the pond in early spring, and this is what they found at the bottom of it. Normally I see about 20 frogs in and around the pond, but they managed to find more than 60!! I am surprised that the fish survived that mess.

Frog school:

There are also several toads in my garden. My humans call them all Trevor. They like to hide under flower pots and compost bags. I haven't seen any toadlets so far, but maybe they hatch somewhere else. I did see some newtlets a few years ago. They are very difficult to spot, and the newt parents are quite shy, too. Unlike the big frogs who allow my FH to rub their chins and take closeup photos.

The pond a few years ago, you can see some of the fishies: