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.



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.