Desire Avenue

Remember the old 'Garden Life' topic we had at CQD? Where Elfy fantasised about eating RobB's frogs,among other things,while RobB and I whittered on like old codgers about our leaves and lupins?
How about a revival?
I want to ask RobB something-Robin got hold of some tadpoles a few weeks back,and rather than putting them in the pond where they'd have had to take their chances among the goldfish and the odd newt (not to mention badgers,herons etc),he had the bright idea to chuck them in an big old black plastic dustbin half full of water.They seem to be doing fine-except that there's no sign of any limbs developing.Shouldn't something be happening by July? Or do some tadpoles never get past the taddy phase?
I've tried telling them 'It's time you grew up' but no use..

The return of 'Garden Life'.....if only I had the time now to spend in the garden.

Usually it takes around 8 / 9 weeks from when the frogs having spawned to the stage when the tadpoles have developed their four limbs and losing their tails. But various factors can shorten or lengthen that period such as food supply and water temperature.

Unfortunately we were hit by a 'frog disease' in this area which wiped out most of the adult frog population. Where as 5 to 10 years I had at least 80 frogs returning to the pond to spawn (this in addition to the dozen or so resident frogs), now there is less than a dozen in total with only a couple of frogs hanging around the pond.

I use to take the spawn and placed it in the water butts,using them as a nursery. This was to increase numbers by protecting them from the newts.

Now I no longer have the time so I leave the spawn in the pond and let the tadpoles take their chance.There's plenty of weed for cover so hopefully some will survive. One pair of frogs spawned in the smaller goldfish pond ,which is set higher up from the main natural pond,in the rockery.

Despite there being only one goldfish nowadays, it take him long to go through most of the merging tadpoles. I certainly didn't see any swimming around after a few days unless they were safely hidden in the weed.

Dave,you mention that you've had the tadploes 'a few weeks' so they could still change. Its rare that the whole batch of spawn/tadpoles would fail to change,....usually its just a few that don't.

If / when they do start changing,make sure that the froglets can get out of the dustbin because they will drown otherwise. As soon as they have four limbs and their tails are nearly absorbed, scoop them out and out them in the grass by the main pond,preferably with netting over the area to keep the birds out.

Hmmm... I've had a lot of dreams with frogs recently. Some of them very large (the frogs I mean) - house sized, even.

I've hacked away at my garden today, and found it very satisfying. As usual with my style of gardening (ignore for six months, then attack brambles with a shears) I'm torn and bleeding. But I discovered (or maybe uncovered is the word) raspberries (or loganberries?) down the back corner - dessert for the next couple of days!

Thanks RobB!
Will keep you informed.
That's pretty much my style of gardening too,Red.Difficult when you live on the edge of a wood like I do.Turn my back for a few weeks and a 5 foot ash tree has appeared with roots that are strong as you like.
I'm just summoning up the willpower to get out the ladders and hedgecutters and attack our hedges which get bigger every year.I always try and wait for all the birds to have fledged,so the hedges are pretty tall.Dangerous work...

Ditto with the birds. I think I had a magpie nest soemwhere in the jungle... Mind you, they've been gone a month at least now! They're noisy things, but hey... two for joy!

Stay safe with the ladders. They can be tricky things (especially with electric trimmers..... )

red wrote:Ditto with the birds. I think I had a magpie nest soemwhere in the jungle... Mind you, they've been gone a month at least now! They're noisy things, but hey... two for joy!

Stay safe with the ladders. They can be tricky things (especially with electric trimmers..... )

Where's that 8-ball smiley gone? Too right anyway.

Some of our birds are on their second lot of nestlings.I know because the blackbird Mum and Dad come out and do their alarm call endlessly at my harmless old cat fast asleep on her back in the sun

At the moment,we've got sparrows feeding young in the nest box on the Oak tree for the second time this year. Its strange how 10 years ago you hardly saw a sparrow around these parts......now we're over-run.....or over-flown with them.

Someone's paying all the cats in your area to stick to Whiskas, obviously.

We're having a little problem with birds inside the house at the moment. Our dominant cat Missy has always been a frighteningly effective hunter. She doesn't kill things immediately though - she likes to play with them for a little while first, especially young birds, chucking them around, pretending to forget about them then pouncing dramatically, and so on. I've watched her many a time out in the garden.

Several times in the past few weeks we've come home to find very much alive, if somewhat bedraggled, birds flying about the place. We figure Missy has started bringing them in to play with before she kills them, instead of doing it outside as she usually does. Trying to get hold of them is a bit of a nightmare, I've managed to rescue two and get them back outside, but that was only because they were paralysed with fear on the floor so I could grab them. The others have flown frantically from one 'perch' to another (lampshades, curtain poles, tops of bookcases) defeating all attempts to catch them, so after a while we've had to just leave them to it - open all the windows, hope they find their way out, if not they're at the mercy of three cats.

I keep chasing off this ginger cat that continually comes into my garden,even though he knows perfectly well that he's not wanted around here. You would have thought that he'd have got the message by now after having had a few half-housebricks buzzing across the top of his head?

But no,as I drove into the front garden this morning, there he was again,nonchalantly wandering across the garden, as cool and as unconcerned as you like .

That was until I put my foot down on the accelerator and headed straight at him,sounding the car horn at the same time.......blimey,you couldn't see his arse for dust.....he was gone,over the fence in a flash.

Maybe now he's got the message?

elizabeth wrote:Someone's paying all the cats in your area to stick to Whiskas, obviously.

My cat is now a junkie for those Felix sachets,which seem to be steadily replacing tins,despite working out much more expensively.Clever marketing,no messy tin to bother with/clean out/recycle/block up your dustbin.

elizabeth wrote:She doesn't kill things immediately though - she likes to play with them for a little while first, especially young birds, chucking them around, pretending to forget about them then pouncing dramatically, and so on.

Tatty does this too,although she's too drugged on Felix to catch anything as fast as a bird.What she does is catch little voles/shrews/similar woodland mammals,bring them into the house,drop them and watch them run off under the piano/sofa/whatever.After a while she loses interest-or they've outwitted her.
And then we have to find them,alive or.....by the smell [:xx]

elizabeth wrote: We're having a little problem with birds inside the house at the moment.

We get inquisitive and hungry birds in the house every now and again,especially in this hot weather where we have to have windows and outside doors open.
Young starlings,blackbirds and robins seem to be the worse offenders for having a look round for any food going.Most of the time i suspect they come and go unnoticed but occasionally thye get disturbed,panic and end up at the kitchen window trying to work out what this thing called glass is.
I managed to catch in my hands a very young starling the other afternoon and escorted him outside.

RobB wrote: end up at the kitchen window trying to work out what this thing called glass is.

We had a wood pigeon fly smack into the kitchen window a few weeks back.It was OK,managing to fly off unscathed,but it left an extraordinary impression of itself on the glass.They must be covered with a very fine white dust,because there was a perfect shape of a flying bird on the window until next time we had a downpour.
Since then I've seen a photo of the same thing in a birdbook-again a woodpigeon.They are odd birds-the only bird that can drink without having to tip its head back after every sip,and quite happy to sing its same old five note song over and over forever and a day.

Are you sure it was white dust,Dave?

Every now and again we have birds flying into the kitchen window and its usually when they've been bathing in the pond or bird bath. Soaked with water, they fly off,heavier than anticipated, and mis-calculate their altitude and end up colliding with the window instead of flying over the top of the extension.

The 'feathered wingspan impression' left on the window glass is usually dried dirty water.

Well it might be that our windows are so dirty that it cleaned a bit off

That happened to us last year - and I think both times it was a pigeon also. The first time it definitely was because it broke its neck, the second we just heard the noise, but it had gone by the time we reached the scene...

And yes both times we got the comical bird outline on the window. We don't have open water anywhere near, maybe it's dust from dustbaths??