I should also add….remember the koI all died…4/5 months ago? I buried the big chief..the numero uno and stuck a ROCK on his head…this week the bastard fox has been in and pawed away around the rock and removed the corpse of a FIVE month dead fish.
yeah yeah the fucker was hungry…
So it’s a sunny day and time to mow the lawn and all that shit. I start to pull out the old weeds from the pond…
now.. remember how excited I was about the blobs of spawn???
All of a sudden I pull away the old dried up debris and there in front of my eyes lies the biggest [collective noun] of frog spawn you have ever seen!!! I couldn’t believe it…there I was so excited and happy to have these mere handfuls and then an entire bucket load descends on me….
And what’s more…so i then start tendering the pond plants…lift up one of the planters and there are these two big eyes staring up at me like the puppy from Bolt! Hellooo!
Enough spawn to leave where it is…and move some to the water barrel….tomorrow….
We have some lovely pictures of the pond and its spawn to look at.
Traditionally I wait until he clocks go back to remove the cover but as the spawn I lying there I will leave for a while. Let it get well and truly established before I move it.
Looking forward to the 2011 roll call and seeing who has survived the winter – tinged with sadness at the loss of the big chaps of course.
A new year dawns!
As you know I don’t remove the cover until the clocks change but this year – just like last, and around the same time – there is frog spawn in the pond.
This was so exciting last year and I put half in the water barrel and half in the fish tank and then NOTHING. Felt guilty all year and worse – no frogs. After years of waiting for my fish to breed, all of a sudden I had my own bona fide frog spawn. And I killed it.
This year…well no koi for a start…no big fat fuckers to feed on the spawn. And the cover is not a net but those smart round plastic inter connecting covers from the bastion of middle class suppliers - Scotts of Stow.
I have three blobs on the plastic. I WISH I had a camera and could have seen that frog returning like a salmon to his home ..jumping across the pond dropping his spawn behind him.
Something went wrong last year. In my head I blamed it on climate change. But its curious he has come back at exactly the same time.
Last year I searched the ponds of sussex but to no avail. No spawn
At Preston park there is a pond with NEWTS! This year I WILL have spawn.
Watch this space.
