Half time in Germany v. Sweden. Just time to get another picture, so here are my shamrock. It’s lovely and sunny right now, so they’re wide awake, but they like to sleep at night. They seem to absolutely thrive on our chalky soil.
But I think it’s also time to take some action to maintain the frog-flora balance, here on Little Storping…
I know they’ve previously wandered in but I put that down to youthful pranks. Tonight it’s hot, it’s rained a little. They come in again. I spot two of them on the way in, as another one’s heading out…
A couple of them get comfy under a drawer unit, but I’ve no idea how many others jumped in when I wasn’t looking.
Finally, these two leave.
Headed the righ tway.
But how many frogs are round the back of the freezer? Or next to the washing machine? How can I stop them wandering in whenever I’m not looking? Must I keep my door shut all the time? I will not be dictated to by my amphibian friends!
On his way up the tree tonight, the frog met a snail coming down.
Look at him just looking at it. He should be gobbling it up.
I was doing a little late night gardening. At around 9pm all the frogs head out of the pond and up to the wall, and tried to climb it. None of them got too far with that, but this one did better climbing the pear tree.
He’s about 2 foot above the ground here, about two thirds of the way up the picture on the right hand branch.
Here’s a zoom in on the same picture, so you can see him:
After the photo was taken he climbed out of sight in the the campinula. Now I don’t know what he’s doing there. Maybe he’s on his way out of the garden (he’s at the same height as the lowest wall there, and there’s a ledge he could crawl along to it).
Or maybe there’s more flies up there. I think that’s what they’re up to now. Some of them are sitting very still, they open their mouths, chomp them shut and give a sort of napkinless dab to the mouth.
Here’s one with his mouth open:
You can see, disappointingly, those jaws aren’t really wide enough to take in a whole slug. Perhaps he could just take little bites…
In the pond tonight a total of 9 frogs visible at once. Sadly there was also a dead fish.
I fear that there is a connection; frogs and fish do not combine well. If you have spawn/tadpoles the fish will eat them (or possibly somethimes visa versa?); if the frogs survive they will try to…er…embrace the fish when they get amourous and I fear that may have been what happened today. And with the frog:fish ratio apparently over 2:1 this may well happen again.
It looks as if I may actually be faced with the hypothetical choice investigated on annA rydeR’s website for real.
TweetI’ve begun to tidy the garden, with most of the work in the basement now finishing up, and I’ve disturbed a couple of frogs. I managed to get this picture: 
which shows that this is a larger grade of frog than those around when one hopped into my subwoofer. My major gripe now is that even though these frogs are as large as many of the slugs and snails, they still don’t seem to be eating them. I’m hoping I’m not going to have to give them a demonstration of what I expect them to do.
The fish are proving more elusive and I haven’t managed to get any pictures. But I’ve seen at least one, which is nearly an inch in length now.
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Er… yes.
This one may take a little explaining…
First of all, it’s been raining quite a lot here today. The wet weather brings the frogs out. While I was washing up I noticed a movement in the corner of the kitchen – it was a frog – it must have come in when I went out (and left the door open – it’s a warm evening). As the frog hops off into my living room, I open the door ready to shoo it out. Another frog hops straight in… I need another plan. I close the door – did that frog hop out again or is it hiding? Not sure.
Meanwhile the frog in the living room has hopped behind the sofa. I’ve got a glass to catch it in, but where’s it gone? It seems to be clinging to the subwoofer!
Now I’ve returned it to the garden. But where’s the other frog? How many others came in undetected? Now not only can I not tread in the garden for fear of squashing a frog, I can’t tread in the flat. And if they’re in here, can they get out? Or will they crawl into some hidey-hole and die, to be found months later when the smell gets bad? Now I can’t open my back door for fear of letting them in again – which is a bit of a problem, since my bathroom’s been removed and so I’m using the outside toilet. Who’d have thought having frogs would be so stressful…
TweetAt midnight last night I returned from a 36 hour round trip to Keith for a funeral. A sad purpose for visiting a beautiful area and during lovely weather too. I am now absolutely exhausted, despite oversleeping and being late for work, and dozing through the entire day, and my only desire is to get some sleep. Except that the sudden storm which broke this unpleasantly hot and humid weather has brought all the frogs out, and there are loads of them!
So I spent a while trying to get a picture of one (they’re still tiny!) and with the help of a very neat utility called photon I can now export pictures from iPhoto directly to the blog. So here is one of the many new froglets that are hopping around me now as I sit here in the garden writing:
Right, I’m off to snooze…
TweetHurrah! Doing a little light weeding as the evening became cooler I disturbed a frog. This is the first time I’ve met one outside of the pond, the first one I’ve seen with no tail, in short the first adult. Look out you slugs and snails! Quite why they’ve chosen the hottest weekend of the year to emerge from the cool of the water I’m not sure. Such is the perversity of nature.
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