Spring is in the air – the frogs have awoken from their winter sleep

I woke up this morning expecting to hear the dawn chorus, instead there was a gentle burbling floating in through the open window – the  frogs were back in the pond – a sure sign of Spring.  Later in the year, there’s sometimes a frog or two croaking in the shallows on the edge of the pond, but, this time of year, they make a soothing gurgling sound.  I love to sit in the sunshine by the pond with a cup of tea and count the frogs – if I sit really still they bob up to the surface one by one and peer at me between the kingcup leaves.

When we first moved in there were no fish in the pond but lots of frogs – and one or two newts – and the frogspawn soon became tadpoles that turned into tiny froglets.  Now we have goldfish and they eat most of the tadpoles so there are very few tiny frogs tp terrify with the lawnmower – we used to have to mow the lawn so slowly to give them chance to get out of the way!