Frog Spawn a Plenty

A short video. There are lots of frogs and heaps of frog spawn in the overgrown garden pond.

Wooer

A second area of the pond is now filled with frog spawn. Most of the frogs dive under water when I go near but one was brave enough to stay put while I took a photo:



So far this year I haven't seen any of the newts.

Nature Waking Up

With the daytime temperature just reaching double figures recently there have been signs of Winter hibernators starting to appear. A couple of days ago I saw a seven spot ladybird wandering across a path in the front garden. Last night this guy was just outside the back door:







A full grown frog though looking very slim after hibernating, possibly under leaf litter or a log pile. I've seen a few slugs in the garden so he / she should soon find a meal or two.

Ribbit

Whenever I get round to mowing the longer areas of grass I have to watch out for:





Yesterday was no different.

Frame and background added using Mac app Poster Maker Pro - Collage.

Mind Where You're Walking

I always have to keep my eyes peeled for any life in the long grass





This frog obliged by keeping still while I poked the Nikon within a few inches.
It was quite large so several years old. Haven't seen any froglets yet this year in the garden.

Tadpoles by the Hundred

Just sixteen days since I noticed the frog spawn in the garden pond.
Thought I would check to see how it was progressing:



These two short video clips don't show even half of what was there.
If they all mature into frogs I won't be able to move in the garden.

A Frog and a Froghopper

The Summer display in my hanging baskets was well and truly over. The Fuchsias came to nothing. They stayed still at about 3 inches high. Fortunately the trailing Lobelia put on a really nice display. Though watered every dry day even they eventually gave up the ghost.

I emptied and relined the baskets then filled them with new compost ready, I hope, for a Winter and Spring display. Round the perimeter are trailing Winter flowering Pansies. Taking up the centre portion are bulbs; Hyacinth, Dwarf Iris (all those are blue) and Puschkinia libanotica (Russian Snowdrops) which have white petals with a blue stripe. I've not grown those before so we will see how they get on.

As for the garden wildlife. A couple of days ago I spotted a young frog on the path



This one was a bit larger than others seen recently so may be a two year old.

While I was troweling compost from the bag to a hanging basket what should decide to leap in to have a close look at what was going on? A common Froghopper (Philaenus spumarius)


 

Weird looking creatures.

Finally a butterfly landed in the garden.
A Small Tortoiseshell

 

A bit of a rare event here this Summer.

Mowing Hazards

As usual I have to keep my eyes skinned when mowing the lawn.
In spite of the lack of rain here the grass hasn't stopped growing.
I was just setting up the mower when I spotted a movement nearby.



A common froglet, not much more than an inch in length



By the size it could well be one of this year's batch.

Sun and Rain

A couple from the stormy day which was not much more than a normal blustery Autumn day here. Apart, that is, from it being so dark for much of the time with just an occasional glimpse of the Sun through the high Saharan dust:





In the close shot the Sun looks a bit lop sided as the camera couldn't find any clear edges to focus on.

This morning it was a case of looking where I was treading when we went for our early walk. The ground was wet from an earlier shower and it was almost impossible to spot any frogs in the gloom. This one got out of the way just in time and thoughtfully waited for me to take a flash photo:

A Weird Night

With so much wet and windy weather there is not much to report recently.

Last night was one of the weirdest I have had for many a long year.

1) Woken up apparently to the sound of Penny yelping. Got up to find her sleeping peacefully.

2) Later: Weird dream / nightmare. Mother comes in my bedroom. Ignores me and walks past to stare at a fireplace just past the end of the bed. She keeps bending and looks as though she is examining something but I can't see what. I wake up screaming.

3) Still later: Dream father comes in my bedroom. Ignores me and climbs a dusty wooden staircase to a dark doorway. He looks furtive as he checks to see if anyone is watching before slowly opening the door. I wake up sweating.

4) Even later: Wake to the apparent muffled sound of something bouncing off the roof and landing in the gravel in the front garden. Get up again to check. Nothing seen.

I very rarely remember any dreams so two vivid weird ones in one night was disconcerting to say the least. Both my parents passed away many years ago. Needless to say the fireplace, staircase and door do not exist in real life.

To bring things back to normality here is a frog I disturbed a few days ago:

A Lucky Escape

Once again while cutting the grass I was startled as one of the garden frogs broke cover:





It was a good job this little beauty had jumped out of the way of the mower.


One photo I forgot to use last time.
A view across the Lincolnshire farmland from the footpath round Covenham Reservoir. Difficult to tell from this photo is just how steeply the ground falls away around the edge of the 218 acre reservoir which is man made and part built above ground level. The footpath is about 20 ft above the surrounding countryside:

Just One

It's about five weeks since I planted the seeds which I hoped would become giant strawberry plants. So far just one has shown signs of life:



Now it's a question of nurturing it to full size and waiting for some runners to produce more plants.

I think I mentioned previously that my wooden lean-to shed was rapidly rotting. I had ordered a plastic shed to replace it. That arrived unannounced yesterday morning so I spent the day demolishing the old and erecting the new:



Astounding what can be achieved with a lump hammer and a wrecking bar!
Plenty of clearing and tidying up left to do once the old joints stop aching a bit.

During the demolition process a movement caught my eye:



One of the garden frogs decided it would be safer to move further away from the action.

Friday at the Flicks - Frogs

 


They arrived last weekend, all gone again by Tuesday leaving 14 clumps of spawn.




I'm still trying to make my mind up which bird can be heard near the end.

Eyes a Watching You

Last weekend the frogs arrived in the garden pond.

Froggy Encounter

One night recently I encountered one of the garden frogs and decided to compare the lighting with the Nikon built in flash and one of the miniature LED flood lights. All the photos are cropped and auto enhanced in iPhoto, mainly for exposure:

Taken with the Nikon's own flash:



Taken with the mini LED flood:



As you can see the flood light illumination is on the orange / yellow side. Something I had noticed with the photo of the pupa I took a few days ago. This is not really surprising as the flood has 16 LEDs, 8 appear to be brilliant white and 8 what is often called warm white:



Not a real problem as a tweak of the temperature and tint settings in iPhoto pretty well brings things back to normal. This one started out like the last but has been 'adjusted':

 

The Ususal Mowing Hazard

It's always a bit nerve wracking mowing the longer grass round the edge of the lawn. Especially so yesterday as it had grown so long. The long grass holds the moisture and is a favourite resting place for the garden frogs. Yesterday was no exception when this young frog (probably around two to three years old) leap out in front of the mower:



Frame added using the old version of PhotoScape X.

Two Very Different Youngsters

As I was checking on some potted plants in the garden I spotted a movement right next to my foot - a young frog about half full size so maybe two or three years old:



Spotted on our afternoon walkabout - a very small Horse Chestnut tree in the grass verge near a full size one. Probably wont survive as that is cut frequently by council contractors. It's amazing it managed to get this big, probably a result of the shoddy job they do in cutting the grass these days:



Borders were put on using Photoscape X. Last time I used the program, which was free from their web site, a notice popped up saying there was an update. Clicking on this led to the Apple Store where it could be downloaded for free. On installing it the first noticeable thing was many of the borders and other facilities were now only available in a Pro version for around £29. It no longer had access to many of the things which had been free. That I don't mind but did think it underhand there was no warning in the notice about the update. Fortunately I still had the original installation program so wound my version back to the old free one and left suitable comments on the App Store. That version is no longer available on their site. First time I have had to use the Mac Time Machine backup in earnest. Good job I update my backup every day.

Friday at the Flicks - Tadpole Gills + Hedgehog

At the time of making this video it had been 16 days since the frogs spawned. Many of the tadpoles were at the wriggly stage. They were free of the spawn but not yet swimming.

 

I collected a few in a dish to have a closer look under the microscope. I hadn't expected to actually see through the gills and watch them working, circulating the blood with each heart beat to extract oxygen from the water.  I am still amazed how well the video camera is working on the microscope:





Once filmed the tadpoles were returned to the pond.

A last minute video clip from last night. Just as I was about to turn everything off I spotted a Hedgehog helping itself to the crushed, unsalted peanuts in the Hedgehog House:



Obviously it wasn't the least bit bothered by the six white LEDs as it had a good close sniff at the camera.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Friday at the Flicks - Sun and Frogs

 

During the partial eclipse I attempted to take some video shots. This is the result, speeded up 20 times or it would have been even more boring as the eclipse is a slow process. As the camera was fixed in position I had to keep repositioning it when the Sun started to disappear out of its view:



Some video of various frogs in the garden pond:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Watching You Watching Me

Lots of frogs in the garden pond watching me photographing them: