Frogs Start Their Exodus

Over the last few days we have observed a number of tiny frogs in and around the office pond.  Although tadpoles have been difficult to spot we were confident that a number of tadpoles had been able to survive long enough to complete their metamorphosis into frogs.  We expect that over the next few days these tiny creatures, most measuring about a centimetre in length will make their way out of the pond and disperse around the yard and the surrounding area.

Office Pond

We are not sure whether this year’s frogs should be referred to as  froglets.  However, it is always pleasing to see these creatures complete the change from fully aquatic tadpole to amphibian.  Occasionally, we come across small frogs around the office buildings, we think that these are survivors from 2010.

To read our earlier post about the first frogspawn spotted in the office pond: First Frogspawn Spotted in the Pond.

Interestingly, when we look back at our records and previous web log articles, we note that frogs had been observed leaving the pond earlier in previous years.  There may be a number of reasons for this.  Firstly, the relatively poor Summer with lots of rain may have kept the water temperature lower than the seasonal norm and this may have slowed the tadpoles development.  Perhaps the poor Summer weather resulted in less food available and this too, would have inhibited the tadpoles growth.  It could also be that  we have simply not observed the frogs leaving as we did last year.

When working late yesterday evening, a went out with a torch to see what I could see in the yard by the pond.  It was raining and as we know from experience frogs seem to be more active in rain then when it is dry.  I counted three frogs within the vicinity of the pond, all of them were large so these were not from this year’s hatch.  Perhaps as the froglets are so small, I just did not see them, so this too could account for the lack of young frog observations outside the pond area.

A Fuzzy Picture of One of Last Years (2010) Frogs

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Our records show that young frogs started to leave the pond in the middle of July back in 2009 and last year.  We have yet to observe one of this year’s tadpoles having left the pond as a fully formed adult, outside the immediate pond area.

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