Pondlife

In the dry weather a couple of frogs, plus their tadpoles, are keeping cool in the shady basin - seems like a pretty decent idea to me. My other basin was getting choked with blanket-weed so I moved it to a sunnier spot in the garden in the hope of keeping it clear and attracting a few pond insects. There was a damselfly around the last few days, but so far I didn’t catch it visiting either pond, or in fact landing anywhere at all. To deal with the blanket-weed I introduced a few Great Pond Snails, who seem to be thriving.

#1 Common Frog (Rana temporaria)

#588 Great Pond Snail (Lymnaea stagnalis)

Frogspawn, in the Pond

I’d been hoping that the frogs might breed in my “pond”, and here it is! Not having a proper pond, I’ve installed a couple of ceramic basins, each about 2 feet across, with some rocks and plants+soil in fabric bags made from an old sheet. Half buried in the soil and tucked in a damp corner, this seems to be fine for frogs. Looking forward to babies in a few weeks! Other signs of sprint arriving this week, included a first Small Tortoiseshell butterfly in the weak spring sunshine on 13 March.