"Terry Pinnell" wrote in message
...
Yesterday I was astonished to find a dozen or two frogs spawning in
our small pond. Hadn't even known we had any!

They will travel a fair distance to breed, it may well be they will then go
back to wherever they came from, presumably soemone elses garden.


I'm apprehensive about the impact of these. In particular, what about
our 6 small goldfish - presumably they're sharing the natural food
supply?

I have 25 or so fish sharing a pond with between 25-50 frogs without any
problem. For most of the year only a few frogs to be seen in the pond, they
are out in the garden eating stuff (where its unlikely they'll be competing
with the goldfish for food :-) At this time of year, all the frogs will be
in the pond, but thats for sex, not food, and the goldfish wont be eating
much anyway. And the tadpoles, when they hatch, are initially vegetarians.

Some people say that goldfish eat tadpoles (in which case your fish will be
better off), though I have never actually seen one do that. It could be they
are so sated that when I am watching, they are full and so dont need to eat,
though they still eat the fish food.

I removed half a bucket of spawn (awaiting delivery to a local
stream),

Oh dear you'll have the eco-nuts after you for that. But if its a
freeflowing stream, it will die anyway, they need still water.

but my attempts with a net have so far (groping around in the
oxygenating plants) resulted in the capture of only a single frog!

Jeez, they get one chance a year at sex and you've messed it up for this
poor guy or gal.

What else, if anything, should we do?

Just leave them alone

What's the usual life style of
your typical frog anyway? After mating/spawning, do they settle down
to marital harmony in their existing habitat? Or hop off somewhere
else? If the latter, hopefully not our flower beds?

Whats wrong with them in your flower beds? They'll eat a bunch of
insects/pests, including maybe slugs (though I've never actually seen one do
that)


--
Terry, West Sussex, UK




--
Tumbleweed

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