There have been singing/croaking frogs in my pond the last few nights! It seems so early in the season. Its cold out there! Its been in the low 40s at night and not much more during the day.
Anyone else?
singing frogs
They've been singing for weeks in our neighborhood - probably spring peepers (or maybe tree frogs).
Just today, we heard the Spring Peepers, and I could not be more excited! The sound of the frogs makes me so happy!
My frog chorus has increased. They sing night and day. Today was warmish and sunny and I sat out with my binoculars to get a census. I think I saw 4 different individual frogs - probably common green frogs.
I am happy about this. I have never had so many at once. I keep having to rescue one or another when he/she gets on the wrong side of the netting (to ward off the herons) but its pretty easy to get them back where they belong. I think I may have seen some crazy action going on so I am hoping there will be eggs and tadpoles soon. But I am not getting my hopes up on that too much.
I also turned on my UV lights to try and keep down the spring parasites.
Happy ponding everyone.
There is now a large egg mass in the pond. I was hoping this would happen but am now wondering if there might be a problem with a load of tadpoles in the pond? I hope not.
Does anyone know about having frogs, eggs and tadpoles in a koi pond? It would be easy to remove the eggs now rather than try and remove a bunch of wiggling tads later. :-
Helen,
The only problem it has presented for us is that snakes tend to hang around our koi pond, hoping for a buffet. We try to leave the eggs where they are placed, hoping they soon grow and hop off, but being in the koi pond, they are subject to being on the menu. We keep small tubs of water plants near the ponds so the frogs will have a place to do their thing. :-)
Thanks WUVIE, I will take your advise, leave the eggs alone and hope for the best. Do you think the koi would eat tadpoles? I thought they were vegetarian.
If the little tads are small enough, and the koi are large, they may very well eat them. Our koi eat just about anything we feed them, anything floating in the pond, anything they can. :-)
I have kept an eye on the egg mass and recently saw small (about 5mm or 1/4 inch long) arch shaped units instead of eggs. I nudged it with a finger and it wiggled. So things are progressing..
I guess if the koi eat them that is nature and okay. I am not setting up a tadpole nursery. Probably some will make it though. If I see some official tadpoles I will let you know.
I still occasionally hear a frog croaking but not too much any more.
Helen,
Remember M.Mary had 32 pair of frogs in one of her ponds and the toad sperm killed off the fish.
Just a thought if you have fish.
Is there scientific proof to back up this claim "toad sperm killed off the fish"? Sounds like something else is in the water responsible for fish kill (low oxygen, pathogens).
We both contacted the professor at Univ. of Fl. about it and they said too much sperm in the water would do it.
I can't say it happened to me cause I took frogs out and put them in our canal which is a long ways from my ponds. I do have a very large resident frog that lives in one of the waterfalls and is fine. Naturally we named him frogie.
That must be a small pond or a lot of toad sperm then.... Can't imagine killer sperm. HA!
At first I laughed as well, but I'll be darned...
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frogs/toadcare.htm
Intersting about breeding toads. I hadn't thought about it much but I guess they would need to get into the water to breed. I haven't seem any toads in my neighborhood and am not concerned about the few frogs that stop by. I wonder if the frogs are still in the pond now that they are done breeding. I only occasionally hear a song/croak.
Time for some birth control? Or bigger pump and filter...
Ever hear a toad's mating call? At least I think it was a mating call. Sounds like a child screaming very shrilly for their life. Scary enough to bring both my wife and myself out of our comfy chairs to the backyard to see where the house was with the screaming child. Finally took a flashlight out looking for the eerie sound and found the culprit was a toad. Case solved.
LOL HC,
We had a similar experience when we first moved the country. What I just knew was a woman screaming for help turned out to be a peacock. An abused woman just fit, though, because the guy up behind us was known for hollering obscenities at the top of his lungs.
Oh trust me, I have a very large pond, and the over abundance of toads on the same night, certainly DID kill my fish! Even when I tried to drain half the water and refill with clean water, it still wasn't enough to save my koi! Frogs, not so much, but toads, beware!!!!
Thank you MM.
Wuvie, we used to have 5 peacocks and one night we had cars stopping out front our house because they all starting hollering and people thought it was a women screaming. Come to find out a coyote was across the road in the woods. Usually they never screamed at night once they had roosted. They did so much damage to my kids cars my oldest son asked permission to shoot them. They tasted pretty good but I missed their colorful presence in the yard.
I don't mind listening to the frogs at all but it was about same night M. Mary had all of hers I had a real loud chorus in the larger pond all night. In the morning I found lots of them and moved them way down in back our pasture to the canal. There they can multiply all they want or become dinner for the fish and gators.
Spermicide or neuter your toads...