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Frog/Frogspawn and Newt watch 2011

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24

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    #32
    Beebaa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 29 ✭Beebaa


    In a small wet area in Co Meath today, this shows part of a group of frogs mating and spawning. Constant murmering, like a low sounding lawn-mower. In all over 150 frogs present. Clumps of spawn appearing as I watched with my two fascinated grandsons.


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    #33
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    Beebaa wrote: »
    In a small wet area in Co Meath today, this shows part of a group of frogs mating and spawning. Constant murmering, like a low sounding lawn-mower. In all over 150 frogs present. Clumps of spawn appearing as I watched with my two fascinated grandsons.
    Well caught. Only once have mine stayed above water when I've been withing camera distance.


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    #34
    trebor28
    Registered Users Posts: 1,051 ✭✭✭trebor28


    Beebaa wrote: »
    In a small wet area in Co Meath today, this shows part of a group of frogs mating and spawning. Constant murmering, like a low sounding lawn-mower. In all over 150 frogs present. Clumps of spawn appearing as I watched with my two fascinated grandsons.


    you left out the NSFW tags :D


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    #35
    mecksimay
    Registered Users Posts: 41 ✭mecksimay


    Mothman wrote: »
    Frog sightings can be entered on Biology.ie
    and IPCC (Irish Peatland Conservation Council)

    Also check out http://www.arc-trust.org/loscan/


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    #36
    Chris_5339762
    Registered Users Posts: 5,849 ✭✭✭Chris_5339762


    Plenty of them in the ponds back at home in Cork. Water looks like its boiling.


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    #37
    Feargal as Luimneach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,139 ✭✭✭Feargal as Luimneach


    My beloved frogs have returned. Was getting nervous that they weren't coming back. Plenty of music in the garden ponds tonight. happy0045.gif


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    #38
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    A frog outside my front door almost got flattened as I stepped out
    Maybe it wanted to get in out of the rain :pac:


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    #39
    Ditch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 809 ✭✭✭Ditch


    Mothman wrote: »
    A frog outside my front door almost got flattened as I stepped out
    Maybe it wanted to get in out of the rain :pac:


    Have ye never come across the term, " Trod on a frog " ? :D

    Rain? Absolutely slashing down, this evening, as I went down the road. Honestly no idea where it came from. Frog hopping across the road, couple or few miles from here.

    Mate jinked, 'to miss him'. Wasn't so sure, from where I was sitting. I thought he'd gone for a direct hit.

    Probably just my perception though. He hasn't got it in for frogs.

    I'm horrified, each year, by the squashed frogs down the tracks to my place. Lucky to see a couple of motors a week down here, especially at night. Yet, squashed frogs are perfectly 'normal'.

    Makes ye think; Tracks must be seething with them, 'in the season'. Yet there's no permanent water for five hundred yards!

    Little wonder they ~ last I noticed ~ talked of changing " Common " frog to " Grass " frog.

    Only ones I ever see here are in the grass, or squashed :(


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    #40
    Gardener3
    Closed Accounts Posts: 70 ✭✭Gardener3


    Only ones I ever see here are in the grass, or squashed

    Hi Ditch - dig a pond!

    When I moved to my place there was just a small stream running along the boundary, too fast for frog spawn.
    Added a couple of ponds ...... there've been 50+ frogs and spawn in the big pond the last week or so and more in the little pond.

    (;) Somewhere for the toad spawn too :D)


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    #41
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    Sunny and milder, after a wet night. Obviously good for frogs.

    From the house, counted 120 frogs in big pond and 80 in small pond. Considering all the ones not in view, got to be 2 or 3 times that total in all :eek:


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    #42
    Ditch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 809 ✭✭✭Ditch


    Gardener3 wrote: »
    Hi Ditch - dig a pond!


    Tell ye don't have horses to feed! Every inch I can keep grassed is a good inch ;)

    Don't worry. The local frogs are obviously doing hellishly well, without my intervention. And, anyway, behind my place I have a secluded, shallow patch of ground which holds water. It's there, if anything ever wants it.

    Come to think of it; I never bother myself with all the cattle troughs dotted about here. But, I've known toads, in england, spawn in a discarded, very small, belfast sink.

    I wonder? I mean, these frogs are thick on the ground and well into 'the middle of nowhere'. But, there's probably a trough of water in more fields than not .....


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    #43
    artieanna
    Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 1,139 ✭✭✭artieanna


    Halleluiaaaa le frogs have arrived at one pool (nowhere near 80 mind) about a dozen (couldn't count, heads disappeared as soon as I went near:() loads of spawn.. three more pools still empty, won't be long now till they fill up...


    AAAAh springs here, feel like a young lamb jumping0045.gif


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    #44
    mecksimay
    Registered Users Posts: 41 ✭mecksimay


    Check out this footage taken in Connemara National Park http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bulKG9pmMH4


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    #45
    emo72
    Registered Users Posts: 6,188 ✭✭✭emo72


    hi guys, i have a pond at home, and was looking to put some spawn in it.

    is this still a big no no? i thought it was illegal to take it from the wild. not sure what to do. a friend found some spawn in the middle of the road and took it home. it would have been crushed otherwise.

    my take on it is to give them a new place to live safely.

    what sayeth you guys?


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    #46
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    This is my opinion, but I use what little common sense I have. I have moved spawn from tractor ruts either because there will be traffic or it is drying out.

    I wonder if the spawn on a road would be fertilised? so may not result in tadpoles.

    Regarding my Heron, it had 8 frogs for Breakfast and then had a little snooze before departing.


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    #47
    emo72
    Registered Users Posts: 6,188 ✭✭✭emo72


    thanks mothman. yea traffic ruts on fireroads in the dublin mountains. common sense it is so!


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    #48
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    Just now, yet again outside my front door.
    1CE3DE8E8CEA4371894BFDF7CEF0C618-0000317152-0002178618-00800L-67CF1D1136EF4F628298BA626FEC7B66.jpg

    Will I get through season without squashing one :(


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    #49
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    emo72 wrote: »
    thanks mothman. yea traffic ruts on fireroads in the dublin mountains. common sense it is so!
    Ah, I took road as in paved road.

    I've seen tadpoles develop really quick in traffic ruts. They have no predators, the pools in ruts can be really warm, which aids the development. My common sense does take it as case by case, and in a Spring without a prolonged dry spell, these can be the ideal environment......that is if there is no traffic :pac:


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    #50
    fgaff
    Registered Users Posts: 45 ✭fgaff


    Hi all take a look at these videos recorded in my back garden in Blarney, Co.Cork last week.


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkN4hxjpDGM

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpqnGBExUuU


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    #51
    Seasoft
    Registered Users Posts: 264 ✭✭Seasoft


    Nice vids, fgaff.


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    #52
    BargainHunter
    Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭BargainHunter


    If you recall from the photo of spawn I posted earlier, I was wondering why the spawn was on the bank and not in the water. I put out the wildlife camera and got my answer. Theres a domestic cat pulling the spawn out of the pond. He doesnt seem to be eating though. Hopefully, he will desist from this, now that he realises its not very appetising.


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    #53
    Simon.d
    Registered Users Posts: 316 ✭✭Simon.d


    About 15 adult frogs in our pond since yesterday, never seen so many... Lots of croaking going on and loads of spawn being laid...


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    #54
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    mecksimay wrote: »
    Also check out http://www.arc-trust.org/loscan/
    A piece on tonights 6 one news.
    Available for a week on RTE Player
    About 39.20 minutes


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    #55
    TequilaMockingBird
    Registered Users Posts: 4,392 ✭✭✭TequilaMockingBird


    Don't know if you guys can help.

    My mum has just found a lone frog in her pondless/waterless walled in garden. How would he have got in there? Would he come up a drain?

    Anyway, what should I do with him, as we have dogs I suspect would eat him. We have a lake and river nearby, should we bring him there?

    Mum says he has lovely eyes. Kids are fascinated. I however run screaming from him.


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    #56
    Birdnuts
    Registered Users Posts: 9,636 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    Came across an unusual sight today - a huge number of paired frogs spawning and croaking @ 4pm in an upland pond. I always thought they did this under cover of darkness:confused:. Also striking how far the natural signs of spring have advanced compared to this time last year. This pond @1200 ft on the Kildare/Wicklow border was still completly frozen over at the end of Feb 2010:eek:.


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    #57
    Feargal as Luimneach
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,139 ✭✭✭Feargal as Luimneach


    My frogs are spawning in the middle of my ponds. That means the summer will be hot (there afraid of the pond drying out). If they spawn at the edge of the pond that means it will be a wet summer. An ould fella told me that, so it must be true. cool0044.gif


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    #58
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    Spawn near edge with me and in fact some areas that would be dry at this time of year, such is the wet of recent weeks.


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    #59
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    Do I need to say where I saw this?......almost squashed outside my front door...struggle to focus in the dark.
    FFE873AB88804DC8AD5483BCD3E55B8D-0000317152-0002186531-00800L-F68EC2B7F18C438796F03283B930F1B8.jpg
    96D58988DB3548ECA395D471E27F342B-0000317152-0002186530-00800L-1DC909CA7EC94F6BBBD8C731DD652F59.jpg
    2970226C7DC6445BA4AD6682B47A31D9-0000317152-0002186529-00800L-BA0652631D494F028B70EEF75E8CA051.jpg

    This is a Newt


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    #60
    Mothman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,498 ✭✭✭Mothman


    TequilaMockingBird wrote: »
    Don't know if you guys can help.

    My mum has just found a lone frog in her pondless/waterless walled in garden. How would he have got in there? Would he come up a drain?

    Anyway, what should I do with him, as we have dogs I suspect would eat him. We have a lake and river nearby, should we bring him there?

    Mum says he has lovely eyes. Kids are fascinated. I however run screaming from him.
    They can climb quite well!
    I wouldn't bother bringing it to water, some damp spot the other side of wall will be grand.


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    #61
    TRNIALL
    Registered Users Posts: 179 ✭✭TRNIALL


    Mothman wrote: »
    Do I need to say where I saw this?......almost squashed outside my front door...struggle to focus in the dark.
    ...

    This is a Newt
    Hi Mothman,did you introduce the Newts to your Pond or have they just Evolved over Time.


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