How much habitat do frogs need...

[zigzag]

Hi,

I live in an urban area where many of the gardens are just patches of concrete. In my very small garden I've created a pond and planted heavily so that there are lots of undisturbed areas. I would like my pond to have frogs and toads spawning in it (I'm used to living in the countryside) I've been offered tadpoles from friends garden ponds but have turned them down because I'm not sure that there's enough habitat locally to support them. So my question is how much habitat/space does a small colony of frogs need to survive/thrive?

[Tringa]

I can't give an answer, but, without knowing exactly what gardens close to you are like, I'd say take the tadpoles.

The percentage of tadpoles that survive to adulthood is very small even in areas that are ideal for frogs. So if you don't take them a high percentage are probably going to die anyway.

Frogs are cold blooded so they do not use much, if any, energy producing heat. Their energy requirements per gramme are a lot less than a similar sized mammal.

Frogs sit out the winter at the bottom of ponds without any food for weeks. Even here in London we had a long period of temperatures below freezing this winter when there was no chance even if frogs had left the pond they would have found any food.

It sounds as if you have enough areas in your garden to provide food for frogs.

Dave

[zigzag]

As an update to this I'm really pleased to say that I've just discovered my first frog, it was quite small so possibly from last year or maybe the year before. No idea how it got here as having looked closely at the gardens all around they're 99% concrete yards and all walled off. I'm now going to be busy making the pond bigger and deeper! So for anyone else who is gardening in a concrete jungle there's hope yet.