Spring is here

[Lord Braykewynde]

Well for me Spring is here already. The frogs have started spawning in my pond while ripping my plants to shreds from all their thrashing about. We sleep with our windows slightly open on the safety lock and the frog chorus goes on all night, lulling us to sleep.

Frogs, I love them and to me are one of the wonders of nature how they metamorphise from a tadpole. I'm saddened to hear that theres a virulent fungus which is killing them off, not just in this country but worldwide.

I will do all I can to provide a place for them to spawn that is pesticide free. I never use slug pellets because frogs, birds and hedgehogs eat slugs, hedgehogs also eating frogs.

It will be a sad world without them :O(

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Unfortunately the birds ate most of the tadpoles in our pond last year. As the pond is one of these preformed palstic moulded things the wife put some stones on the shallow shelf to enable the frogs to come and go to the pond water easier.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Unfortunately the birds ate most of the tadpoles in our pond last year. As the pond is one of these preformed palstic moulded things the wife put some stones on the shallow shelf to enable the frogs to come and go to the pond water easier.

What birds?

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Unfortunately the birds ate most of the tadpoles in our pond last year. As the pond is one of these preformed palstic moulded things the wife put some stones on the shallow shelf to enable the frogs to come and go to the pond water easier.

A variety of birds had a field day - we were out the back garden working and a neighbour asked us what was in the pond, which is in the front garden, as there were "hundreds" of birds flocking back and fore. When we went to have a look nearly all the tadpoles had disappeared.

 

[emmerson2]

We've got daffies and primroses in the forest, and the sun is shining!!

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Saddest part for me is to see the poor little frogs corpses squashed on the roads as they migrate to the spawning ponds :O(

Take a photo of the sun Emmo, that's a rarity for the neck of the woods where you live :O)

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Went out yesterday and dead fox on road - looked as if it hadn't been there long as the body was not squashed. etc. Felt a little pang of sorrow but what can one do?

 

[emmerson2]

Colin, some years ago I used to drive a big red van for the Queen, in LB's area. I was driving down a long farm road one spring when I spotted a pair of foxes at the edge of a wood. They were playing like kittens, and it was a pretty sight that I stopped and watched for about ten minutes, then the foxes disappeared off into the wood. I carried on down the lane and met the farmer in the yard. "Saw you watching the foxes" said he. "Aye" says I " wasn't it lovely". " yes, it is one of natures prettiest animals" he said, "but I can't afford to feed 'em. I'll go up and shoot them later"

A great shame, but with lambs and chickens about the place, he was right.

We have a pair of foxes down here, which I see quite often in the early morning, but we're in sheep country, so the laws of economics apply here too, I'm afraid. One fox among a flock of breeding ewes can cause hundreds of pounds worth of damage in minutes.

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Emmerson I can fully understand what you are saying regarding the nuisance element of foxes but seeing a freshly killed one still brought that momentry feeling of sorrow - after all they are like us entitled to live.

I take the dog for a walk every morning for approx. 2 hours along the river bank and the wild life i see/hear is fantastic. Spent approx. 10 mins. the other day watching and listening to a woodpecker and the mate returning the call. Few minutes walk out of the house and I am in the countryside with nature and the flow of the river - peaceful and relaxing.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Just been outside to clean up the dogdumps off the lawn and I've got 10 lots of frog spawn now :O)

 

[colin(bridgend)]

Is there a connection between dog dumps and frog spawn that I am not aware of?

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

I'm hoping the frogs have finished now, the spawn takes up about 1/8th of my pond and the fish keep bumping into it :O(

Just under the bird feeder theres evidence that the sparrow hawk has visited, lots of small breast feathers that seems to have belonged to a blue tit. That's the trouble with feeding stations, easy pickings for the sparrow hawk but it's only nature and they have to live too.

 

[Guest]

I wish I could share the sentiments. I have just been home for the last 2 weeks and the day we arrived it was gorgeous. The following day the gales and storms started and have lasted on and off, for the whole 2 weeks. Even today the flights to Amsterdam were disrupted due to stormy weather and guess what? in Budapest tomight there is a gale blowing.

The daffodils on ouir balcony have heads but not much else.

Time to become a starling methinks, and fly south for winter.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Ummmm, starlings stay SL. The only starlings who fly to a warmer climate are the ones off the Steppes and Scandinavia and they fly here in late autumn to increase our resident population. They should be leaving to go back soon.

Now if you were a swallow, swift, house martin, cuckoo etc. you might be ok. That is if you can get by the guns of France, Spain, Scicily, Malta etc. where they find it a macho sport to blast the flocks of migrating birds out of the skies as they fly by on their migration routes from Africa.