I spotted movement in the pond as I walked down the path last night and on closer inspection, it was a small number of frogs who quickly bolted beneath the water but soon bobbed back to the surface again. More excitingly, there were two clumps of frogspawn!
We went out for a walk later in the evening and had another look as we passed by, sure enough there were a coupled frogs visible by torchlight.
This morning, the number of clumps had grown from two to nine overnight. The temperatures had dropped below freezing, as evidenced by the white frosting on the grass and the ice on top of the frogspawn, but this seemed to do little to deter them.
Nature’s Calendar has average first sighting of frogspawn over the last few years – the 2016 data is still being gathered but the average for the period 2012 – 2015 varies between 2nd and 17th March, making the 9th March an approximately average first-sighting!
If you spot frogspawn, you can help contribute to scientific data by recording your sighting at Nature’s Calendar and the Big Spawn Count.
Another Country Diary 