Random Ramblings

Random Ramblings: Personal observations on a wide variety of subjects. Photographs of creatures and things that are taken on seeing the unusual as well as everyday things.

Amphibian death

The day started off with a promise of spring warmth and I made my way over to the pond. We had three batches of frogspawn and I wanted to see how far the tadpoles had developed. Peering at each of the batches - it was apparent that some had broken through the egg sacks and were hiding in the ribbon algae that clings around the edges of the pond.

The fish are now beginning to become more active and have started to eat extra quantities of food. I have not yet seen any swallow the tadpoles.

Celandines are squeezing through the cracks around the edges of the pond's brim. It was here, towards the pipes that come from the UV filter that I saw a frog. It had the loveliest of markings and along the sides of its body it was a bright yellow-green spattered with black spots. The remainder of the body was rich brown. It was on the side of the pond with its back leg dangling in the water, motionless.

After a while I realised that it was, in fact, dead. Just to be sure I touched its soft, cold body - it didn't move, not a twitch. So it was scooped up out of the water, away from the tadpoles.

There has been talk lately of a disease that is spreading through the wild frogs of Britain and killing off large numbers of them. I am hoping that my frog (which was a handsome specimen) died of natural causes, hopefully old age. I shall have to wait and see if any more of the little brood that live in my pond die - I hope not.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How sad. I hope your brood are OK. It is sad that my kids don't see frogs very often at all, unlike those days of my childhood when we could sit and watch the pop out and leap across the paddocks.

zzapper said...

Hi
Funny I found a dead frog as well. I thought it was from all the rotting leaves which I was late in cleaning

Dave

Ely said...

feel sad for your frog. I use to play with frogs when i was kid. We a have a lot of them in the fields near my grandma's house. I was able to catch one one day, tied one of its legs (pardon me, i was 7) and left it floating in a basin half full of water, i cried when it died.