New Pond and first frog spawn

[mrmuddybum]

Hi folks,

I built a wildlife pond in our garden last summer, and we have the first frog spawn in there this spring. I've been keeping an eye on its development, and I'm wondering if what has happened is normal.

The tadpoles appear to have hatched, and the outer part of the spawn is starting to disintegrate, but I rarely see any tadpoles. Every now and then I see one swimming around, and sometimes see them that appear to be 'resting' on rocks in the bottom of the pond. The vast majority of them appear to be is a large mass in the centre of the spawn, as if they have hatched and then swum into the centre of the ball of spawn. I see them wriggle around every now and then, but this is something I didn't expect. Kind of thought they would hatch and then see hundreds of tadpoles swimming around the pond. They have been like this for about a week now.

Is this normal? Are they in some state between hatching and becoming strong enough to swim around, or am I on the verge of losing my first batch of frogs?

[dampflippers]

Yes I think it is normal. To start with they just hang on and I presume eat more of the spawn. You'll soon see them swimming about in a week or so.

[Elean0r]

Ours has done the same, there were clusters of tadpoles on the spawn but now it's seemed to vanish. They seem to be hiding in amongst the plants.

The weirdest thing is that the empty spawn is floating around the pond