Devon SSSI nature reserve and eco lodges - Maggie's Blog
8 March
Frogspawn...
There's frogspawn in our smallest pond - the seasonal one in the lodge field. I haven't seen any elsewhere. Too may fish in the pond by the cottage, and the water hasn't really cleared enough in the big pond yet.
The spawn looks healthy enough, but some of the tadpoles seem to have hatched out already, and appear to have died - they don't move at all when touched. It has been cold again the last couple of days, with sleet and snow - have they just gone immobile? Or is it something in the water? I know frogs have been suffering world wide at the moment, so I hope we haven't got some nasty disease.
All my childhood we had tadpoles at home - buckets of tap water standing outside so as to lose their chlorine before being used, plenty of pond weed, and ugly great fat tadpoles who ate mince (attaching themselves in rows to a morsel my mother would throw in), then finally tiny frogs who, often as not, made a bid for escape around the kitchen before being returned to the ditch they originally came from. Perhaps I'll adopt a handful of spawn. It's good education for the children and if I'm careful they should be no worse off than in a wet corner of the field.
Here's a bit more about caring for frogspawn and tadpoles from the Young People's Environment Trust
And more advice from Froglife