City living garden frogs

If you have a garden pond one thing to consider is local frogs. You may find that each spring frogs visit your pond to breed and the reuslting frog spawn may swamp your pond.

That may be fine if you want a natural pond that attracts local wildlife but not if you want a pristine clean fish pond.

But the 21st Century has seen the UK frog population declining and simply throwing the spawn away will not stop frogs using your pond each year though it will not help increase the number of frogs either.

These small amphibians, frogs, often fascinate people so it would be sad if they became extinct and after all every creature has its place in this world.

Over the last few years the U.K. population of frogs has been hit by disease which has meant a rapid decline in their number. In 2010 a killer virus wiped out thousands of frogs.

For this blogger though frogs are alive and well, enjoying life in the city

We moved into our current home in 1999. It is in a northern city of Yorkshire in the U.K. The relatively small garden already had a pond in situ which had a small stock of fish and each spring a teaming population of frogs.

Throughout the year the frogs would seemingly vanish.

Move a plant's leaves in summer though and you were liable to glimpse a frog or even have one jump out at you and in spring each year the frogs would become visible. A veritable orgy would be on going for weeks in our pond, with so much frog spawn that some had to be removed.

Following local flooding in 2007 and extensive renovation works of our home it was decided that it would be prudent to fill in our pond. Sadly neighbours had been doing the same for years resulting in more and more frogs filling our garden and pond each spring.

On a mild evening the garden was, as far as noise went, reminiscent of the Deep South of the U.S.A. and the frog chorus.

Frogs however must have a "die hard “attitude to life.

Almost ten years later the frogs are still around.

In May 2015 some frogs returned to their proverbial spring home. There may be few ponds locally now but they were looking for a good place to breed and their desire strong.

The odd frog was spotted in our garden like the one shown in the image above.

Opening the door early in the morning this frog was looking up at me. It had plonked itself in our dog's food dish that had been left outdoors to soak in water overnight.

There the frog stayed all day then vanished.

Conclusion: We need to put more thought into building city ponds and more importantly into filling them in.

Frogs, once they have found a forever breeding ground will return year after year after year to breed. If the U.K. frog population is declining we can all play a part in halting that.

For this blogger it is going to be providing a temporary wet area for the frogs to "play".

Now March 1, 2017, may be a good day to start that project.

​Gardener's friend?
​Make your garden frog friendly
​Save the Frogs