Floaters on the pond - frogspawn

It is that time of year when everything seems to be happening at once. Having waited an age for spring to arrive, and also having been caught by a few false starts, I now feel I can say it is here.

The middle of last month I was at Chishill and I am pleased although not surprised to say there was a lot more water in the pond than a year ago. The area of weed that I left between the fallen tree and the bank has been visited by at least 8 frogs as there were four obvious groups of spawn on the surface.

The idea in leaving this area of cover was to help the more modest visitors and it appears to have worked. Sadly, there was no evidence of the toads that have regularly spawned up to the pond being dry in 2012. Turning the clock back to spring 2011, the pond was alive with toads to the extent the only frog spawn was in the lower pond.