Frogs and Frogspawn

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by Red Robin

....I find watching newts far more fascinating than frogs. Also, frogs are likely to eat the newt tadpoles < Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Both will eat both I believe!

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by Red Robin

I introduced some frogspawn from about 50 yds away - A practice which most WABers frown on. I then discovered that about 5 Palmate Newts had invited themselves to the party and the tadpole population nose dived! I also found the discarded skin of a Dragonfly nymph in my pond and that suggests I've got one. It also means that lots of things will get eaten by it. My pond is quite small but I still haven't managed to spot it.

I don't think you should try and protect one wild species from another - It's all part of nature's food chain. However, I will protect everything I can against cats and will chase, frighten, and harrass them if even near to my property.

Fish wouldn't normally be in the type of pond preferred by frogs - but they are opportunists (frogs that is and will have a go almost anywhere with still wet stuff!)

exciting to have a dragonfly, if you post a pic of the shed skin someone on WAB wil be able to ID it. It may well have already been eaten by something else though!!

[Red Robin]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

exciting to have a dragonfly, if you post a pic of the shed skin someone on WAB wil be able to ID it. It may well have already been eaten by something else though!!

....Thanks - I already started a thread and got back some very helpful info:

Dragonfly case....

[Red Robin]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

.....frog tadpoles are very tasty!.........Toads fair better because the tadpoles taste bad.

....Gill, you really need to stop this behaviour!

It's one thing to go around kissing frogs and toads in the hope that one will turn into a Prince, but eating them afterwards is the sort of thing that some female spiders do.

[Kayleigh]

Just done a pond dip there is nothing in there no tadpoles or toadpoles there is lots of water fleas and water slaters.
I fished out 1 male newt and 1 dead looking frog it wasn't it jumped away..
Where have all the tads gone..

[Red Robin]

Originally Posted by Kayleigh

Just done a pond dip there is nothing in there no tadpoles or toadpoles there is lots of water fleas and water slaters.
I fished out 1 male newt and 1 dead looking frog it wasn't it jumped away..
Where have all the tads gone..

....Sounds like the newt had a feast and perhaps there was more than one newt in your pond (almost guaranteed!). I've only spotted about two surviving frog tadpoles.

[Kayleigh]

Originally Posted by Red Robin

....Sounds like the newt had a feast and perhaps there was more than one newt in your pond (almost guaranteed!). I've only spotted about two surviving frog tadpoles.

They dont normally eat the toadpoles I will save some next year in the barrel.
They could be hiding in the yellowflag as they go back quite away so could be in there..

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by Red Robin

....Gill, you really need to stop this behaviour!

It's one thing to go around kissing frogs and toads in the hope that one will turn into a Prince, but eating them afterwards is the sort of thing that some female spiders do.

Have just seen this ha ha

[tom00_uk]

Originally Posted by JohnKitching

I have a smallish pond with maybe 10 - 12 small goldfish and perhaps half a dozen large frogs. The frogs produced a football sized mass of frogspawn which hatched and the tadpoles were seen in a big mass in mid April. After maybe two days there was no sign of the tadpoles, is it likely the fish ate them? I'm sceptical about it being the fish as they don't appear to be eating anything else (I try a handful of pellets every few days but they show no interest)

with 12 carp in a small pond you are likely over stocked

i have masses of tadpoles in the pond that contains fish, they have more than enough slower moving inverts to feed on, while i wait for a predator to feed on them