Posted: Wednesday 27 February 2013
by Richard Jones
Whenever I speak to anyone about frogs or toads, they are always slightly amazed that their pond-free garden should contain them.
It was only to be expected at this time of year, parent talk in the playground turns to frogs and toads. I haven’t seen any yet — too blistering cold, either for them to be moving or for me to out rootling in the garden — but I have just been shown photos of one on someone’s phone.
Apparently there was initially some debate about whether it was a frog or a toad. It’s definitely a frog, but covered in sandy grit so it doesn’t look as smooth as normal. We get both in the gardens round here, although from memory I’d have to say that frogs outnumber toads 10 to one.
Whenever I speak to anyone about frogs or toads, they are always slightly amazed that their pond-free garden should contain them. But, of course, amphibians only need a pond during the breeding season, to lay their spawn. The rest of the time they are terrestrial animals, completely at home in the shrubbery, log pile or herbaceous border. Their very name — amphibian — is a reflection of this, deriving from the Greek amphi (both, or both sides, as in ambidextrous) and bios (life), meaning that these wonderful creatures are equally happy on both sides of the water/land divide.
Very shortly, pond or no, gardens are more likely to see frogs and toads than ever, because now is the start of the annual migration back to their birth ponds. I’m fairly lucky in that, although my back garden is not ever so large, it is part of a large block of gardens where hedges and fences are tatty enough to allow these beasts fairly easy passage.
We have a pond, and occasionally a frog will be sitting in it. As far as I know they have never bred there. But somewhere else, near at hand, hidden from my view, there must be other small garden ponds, more frog- and toad-friendly ponds, where successful spawning does take place. A good thing too.
Thank you to Franck Cassedanne for kind permission to use his frog image.
nutcutlet
11/03/2013 at 18:55
Loads of newts, smooth and great crested, here but rarely see a frog or toad. No frogspawn for years
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