Last Updated: 2nd September 2003
Common
Frog
Constructing the Wildlife Pond
The common frog is the most common of all frogs in Britain and will come to
many ponds in the spring to spawn. Despite its name the common frog is not as
common as it used to be due to many pond of Great Britain be destroyed over the
last century. The frogs can be found all over Great Britain and will live in a wide
variety of habitats from woodland to meadow. The frog will always be found
relatively near water as that is wear it breeds. The frogs can reach a length of up
to 8 cm and range in colour from a yellow-green colour to Grey and males
develop a blue patch on their throat and back during the mating season. Frogs
moves around by large hops or jumps using it’s powerful legs which are also
used for swimming in water as well as hopping on land
Common frog Reproduction and tadpoles
The Frogs breeding season is between February and April. During the breeding
season the male will grasp the female and embrace for several hours. The results
will be a mass of frogspawn consisting of up to 2000 eggs. Inside the eggs there
will be a tiny black dot which is the embryo of the tadpole. The eggs in the correct
conditions of warm weather Will take around 2 weeks to hatch. But the hatching
of the eggs is very dependent on temperature and as the eggs can often be laid in
February when there is a lot of frost some of the eggs can turn white and the
embryos die. However as so many eggs are laid it is rare that all the embryos die
before hatching When the embryos grow into tadpoles they swim out of the mass
of jelly and for the first few days eat the mass of jelly and the go on to eating plant
matter which at that early stage is mainly algae. As the tadpoles grow they will it a
wider range of plant matter. After about 6-7 weeks the tadpoles start to develop
legs and by 11 weeks the tadpoles would have lost their gills that they used to
breathe with in the water, grown lungs and will have front and back legs. At this
stage of development the Tadpole is now omnivorous and only a week the
tadpole will go out of the pond and at day time stay under damp rocks as near as
possible to the Pond. At this point the frog are fully developed but only about 1
cm in length. Because the tadpoles are so vulnerable many get eaten by
predators and even though 2000 embryo frogs are born only 5 embryos out every
2000 eggs laid Make it to adulthood!!
Encourage Common Frogs
These are the best ways to encourage frogs to your pond:
1. Shelter outside the pond:– Shelter such as under rocks or logs is extremely
important. The frogs will use the logs or rocks for hibernation during the winter
and for shelter from the heat during the summer. The rocks or logs should be in a
pile of a minimum of about 5 or 6 medium-sized rocks or logs although obviously
one will be better than none and the frog could still shelter under one rock or log.
2. Shelter inside the pond - Shelter inside the pond can be created by the
marginal plants. In the marginal plants the frogs can come up to breathe and still
can be fairly safe from Predators. You can also put rocks inside the pond for
frogs to hide under but this is not
advised in a pond with liner because the liner
can break causing a leak in the pond. How ever what you can do if you
have a
liner is that when you make the pond you can provide several large creases in the
liner in which the frogs can shelter under.
3. Also what is important is having an area of shallow water not much deeper that
about 5-10 cm. Although if you have built the wildlife pond correctly there should
already be an area of shallow water.
4. What is very obvious but not always at the frogs dispense is food. This is not
just for the frogs but also for the tadpoles