[ARPoet]

I usually get loads of these overwintering in my basement.
This one has been sleeping just inside the doorway and must be excited at the prosect of nice weather.

[RubyR3d]

Praps why you haven't got any spawn  We have several thrashing around and get our first lot of spawn by march 17th St Patricks day.

[blackberryjam]

 lovely, peacock butterflys are my favourite 😊

[Paul Plots]

Praps why you haven't got any spawn  We have several thrashing around and get our first lot of spawn by march 17th St Patricks day.

You may be right - can only hope. But, normally we have frog-spawn in the pond as early as mid February even in colder winters. Here's hoping but I have seen few frogs recently and the pond is full of last year's young fish... it may have put them off. 

[8doubles]

Generally speaking frogs tend to avoid ponds with lots of fish while toads will spawn there quite happily .
Tadpoles are fish food but toadpoles taste nasty .

There is quite often a second spawning period a month after the first so there is time yet !

[Paul Plots]

Generally speaking frogs tend to avoid ponds with lots of fish while toads will spawn there quite happily .
Tadpoles are fish food but toadpoles taste nasty .

There is quite often a second spawning period a month after the first so there is time yet !

I thought the frogs may have been discouraged by all the little black goldfish... seems sensible to move on but sad not to have them in the pond.

Second spawning.... I'll keep an eye out. Thanks

[snowdrops]

I only heard frogs in our fish pond on Sunday night for the first time, ours always seem later than other people's. They usually lay plenty but this year I'm going to attempt to stop the fish eating the taddies

[8doubles]

As i have mentioned in the past an open topped water butt with a good layer of green algae is great home for excess taddies.

They will grow faster than taddies in the pond but do not overload it and provide an escape ramp when they have legs.

Bash the watering can on the surface and the taddies dive to the bottom so you can submerge the can safely !

[RubyR3d]

My mum doesn't have a pond but frogs lay spawn every year in the hand holes of her drain covers and shallow pots she uses as drinkers for the birds. I undertake to rehome all the spawn and keep it in washing up bowls with water and weed from the pond. When it hatches and the tads are a reasonable size they get put in my pond.

[Paul Plots]

Time to sink another pond I think - ours is full of small fish from last year and I'm sure the local frogs (and newts) would appreciate a bit of extra space.

I just need to decide where to put it... edge of the Veg Plot? End of the other garden?

Presently it has filled with winter rain and is sitting above ground like a large fibre-glass washbasin.

[RubyR3d]

Beautiful day and wonderful walk through fields and woods today with my JR. Saw Bullfinches, Chaffinchs, Peacock butterflies, small tortoiseshell, lots of Bumblebees. Coltsfoot in flower, and nearly trod on a pair of coupled up toads on the grassy path. Blow me 20 yatds on there were 2 more.

[Paul Plots]

Beautiful day and wonderful walk through fields and woods today with my JR. Saw Bullfinches, Chaffinchs, Peacock butterflies, small tortoiseshell, lots of Bumblebees. Coltsfoot in flower, and nearly trod on a pair of coupled up toads on the grassy path. Blow me 20 yatds on there were 2 more.

Brilliant to have our beautiful country-side.

(Worried that locally ours is vanishing under housing estates)

[Dave NE]

We have a bee nest/hive in an old bird box and last week we noticed the outside of the box was becoming covered in what we thought was pollen. we then noticed that the queen would come out and deposit a yellowish liquid every 15 minutes or so, the nest is very overcrowded and i think the queen is aborting her eggs, we have seen grubs being dragged out of the nest and to cap it all there are at least 4 queens in this small nest box. The queens leave the nest on a regular basis and are set upon by the constant swarm outside, i think these are boy bees as they are always on the queens backs, very strange, Dave

[compostqueen]

I was looking up at our nest box the other day, for signs of life, and noticed a bit of twig or something sticking out the hole at the front (where else  )  I climbed up for a look-see, touched it and found it was connected to something else. It was a dead mouse! A very dehydrated dead mouse. It looked completely untouched.  Weird! 

There is no nest in the box as far as I could tell

[aelf]

I have bumblebees in my robin nesting box. Dozens of them flying about it but they are not bothering me. The nuisance is that the box is next to my hedge and the hedge needs cutting