Wednesday 17 February 2010

A Frog, He Would A-wooing Go

A frog he would a-wooing go,
Heigh ho! says Rowley,
A frog he would a-wooing go,
Whether his mother would let him or no.
With a rowley, powley, gammon, and spinach,
Heigh ho! says Anthony Rowley.


Frogs

I was having a look in my garden pond to see if any fish had survived the many periods of ice covering this Winter, at one stage reaching two inches thick, when I spotted something in the edge of the reeds. Just the eyes and mouth of a frog were showing through the surface of the water. For several minutes I could only make out the shape of one large fat brown frog which appeared to have a grey patch on its back. It was only after I had taken some video (saved for Friday) that I realised the grey was in fact a smaller frog clinging to the larger one - presumably a male and female though it seems a bit early and cold as yet to be producing spawn. In fact even after they dived out of sight there was no evidence of any spawn in the pond.

One thing which may have encouraged the frogs was a day of glorious sunshine, apart from one hail shower, and temperatures which actually topped 7C in the afternoon though it soon dropped back to 2.5C when the Sun went down.

I did see two small fish swimming about so at least some have survived the worst of the cold weather. There will no doubt be more as there were last year when I didn't see any until well in to the Spring.

The verse at the top is the start of an old nursery rhyme / childrens' song which can be seen in full on many sites on the internet including Mama Lisa's World, House of English Nursery Rhymes.

8 comments:

  1. Good to know that some have survived the cold weather John. I reckon you'll have some frogspawn soon.

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  2. So glad you have some survivors in the pond John and, regarding the frog activity, perhaps Spring isn't so far away after all!

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  3. Great to see those signs of life so early in the year!

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  4. Billing and coo-ing
    Froggies a woo-ing
    Good to see how everyone's doo-ing :)

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  5. Hello Keith. I don;t mind a few fish surviving but they breed so well some years there are too many for the health of the wildlife ;)
    I'm keeping my eye out for the frog spawn as I want to transfer I to a nursery 'pond' for safety.

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  6. Hello Jan. I was surprised the small fish had survived. I do hope Spring isn't too far away though with this morning's ice and fog the frogs may well change their minds for a while.

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  7. Hello Wilma. I just hope they are not too early as we are back to freezing temperatures this morning.

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  8. Hello Glo. Yes, it's all happening here.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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