First wild frog spawn

Today was a very exciting day. Our pond is only about 21 months old and today we noticed our very first clump of wild frog spawn in it.

The spawn is from the common frog (Rana temporaria) but, other than some donated frog spawn we had last year, we’ve never seen a frog in our garden. True to form, the parents of this spawn were nowhere to be seen.

It’s interesting to note that frogs are known to return to the pond in which they were born to spawn each year. However, our pond is less than two years old and since frogs only start breeding at three years old they can’t have been from our pond originally.