Tadpoles emerged (1 Viewer)

[digi-birder]

Checked the pond this morning and it's seething with little tadpoles. They must have hatched, if that's the correct term, late yesterday.

I've put a photo in the Gallery - not a very good one as the sun was shining, but it gives some idea of the numbers.

There's still some more spawn left so there'll be more taddies in the next few days no doubt.

 

[Surreybirder]

Who'd be a tadpole!

That's interesting. We're, I guess, a couple of hundred miles S of you and the ones in our garden hatched (if that's the word?) about two weeks ago. The spawn was laid at the beginning of March. I'll be fascinated to see how many survive. I don't know much about pond life as we only built ours last spring. But we know there are some pretty ferocious dragonfly larvae in there (we did a bit of pond dipping). There are also various beetles and waterboatmen. The poor tadpoles are likely to have a rough ride, I suspect. (And I wouldn't put it past the local kingfishers and herons to have a quick fish, either).

 

[steve_nova]

And then to cap it all, a few of the largest individuals change from algae munchers into carnivores and eat their smaller siblings. This protein boost excelerates their metamorphosis into small froglets, ensuring that some are big enough for the big bad world!

 

[robinm]

Like Surreybirder the tadpoles in our pond emerged about 2 weeks ago. Our fish love them - live food.

One year we did have lots survive and in early summer you could lift up a stone near the pond and there would be 20-30 tiny frogs underneath.

 

[Andrew]

I'd love a pond with taddies in them cos they will probably bring a fresh slant to the variety of birds in the garden. Possibly Herons?

 

[digi-birder]

Our pond is only about five feet by three feet and, as we're in the middle of a built up area, we don't get much else in it, especially not Herons and Kingfishers (Oh, how I wish). We have had tadpoles for the past two years and it is amazing to watch how they reduce in number as the weeks go on. I love seeing all the little froglets hopping around the garden.

There are some other pond species in there - various small beetles and snails. We had a larger pond in a much larger garden when we lived in Norfolk and we had Waterboatmen and Dragonflies etc in there. When we move, which will be in the not-too-distant future, hopefully, we will definitely look for a larger garden.

 

[Andrew]

We have not got a pond of any sort, just a few buckets and lots of empty plant pots yet we can almost guarantee a pair of massive ugly Toads every year!

 

[Surreybirder]

We only dug our pond last year (about 10ft across). We nicked some water from a local stream, just to introduce some wildlife. I was amazed how quickly we had pond skaters, water boatment, damselflies, dragonflies, frogs... I find it quite fascinating to see the variety. Even a purple-colored reed beetle!

 

[simondix]

Looked in my pond on seeing this thread. My tadpoles are out as well.

 

[robinm]

We moved into our new house 3 years ago and have built a fishpond with a small elevated pond linked to the main pond by a cascade and stream (all very small). The birds love the cascade and stream - we have had 20+ starlings having a communal bath. I think our best visitor was a grey wagtail, who came virtually every day over the winter and loved the rocky cascade.

In our previous house we had a small urban garden with tall trees on 2 sides. The heron would sit on the wall surrounding our pond early in the morning - 8 feet from the house. One autumn day a kingfisher (I guess a recently booted out youngster) flew into the garden and sat on a tall bird feeder pole, eying up the fishpond. I couldn't believe my eyes - unfortunately this was before I had a decent digital camera. Damn!

 

[Surreybirder]

sad news

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Found a dead common newt in our garden pond today.
The tadpoles seem to have disappeared, too.
On the bright side, the sticklebacks seem to be doing well! :t:

How are all the other ponds mentioned in this thread doing?

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[digi-birder]

The second batch of taddies hatched a couple of weeks ago. They're all milling round now and feeding. Pond's full of them - all different sizes - you can tell the ones that are going to survive.

 

[Ivan]

Surreybirder,
sorry for your sad news but it brought back memories of returning from a short break a couple of years ago to be greeted by much the same scene. Whilst we were surveying the damage a neighbour came over and said she had chased two mallard from the pond on four occasions in three days! The ducks were after protein and had eaten all the spawn, tadpoles, newts and adult frogs they could get their beaks on :-( I did not think ducks would eat frogs and quizzed her on this but she was adamant that is what she saw.
In subsequent years we resorted to netting over the pond during the spring only the frogs kept getting caught up in it. This year we laid bamboo canes across the pond and it seems to have deterred the ducks and does not look quite so ugly.
Hope you have some life left in your pond that escaped the onslaught.

Ivan