FROG BLOG

Hmm… I’m not sure what is happening but I’ve come home after a night away to see a change in the pond.

Still lots of tadpoles and still no legs apparent but the tadpoles have a new behaviour. When I threw in some food this evening, the usual scrum developed in the gravel where the sinking food landed (both vegetarian and meat options on the menu). But quite a few tadpoles remained on the surface, seeming to gasp for air. And by quite a few I mean a hundred or so. Also, the water had lots of bubbles on the surface and was quite murky, with a brownish hue that made it more difficult to see to the bottom; quite a change from the crystal clarity of recent weeks.

I’m puzzled because we’ve had torrential rainfall, so I imagined that the water would be naturally replenished, aerated and topped up. I’m concerned because tadpoles can die quite quickly if the environment is unhealthy. So I came inside to do some Googling and now have a list of possibilities…

• The balance between creatures is off (perhaps too many tadpoles) so not enough of whatever is mucking up the pond is being eaten.
• Soil being washed into the pond due to the torrential rain.
• Too much tadpole poo not being eaten by poo-eating organisms for some reason.
• Too much or too little food (or too much of the meaty food perhaps, there does seem to be a correlation between introducing the new food and the state of the pond).
• Not enough oxygenation.

Not knowing what to do for the best, I decided to add some rainwater from the garden butt. I added three buckets until the pond was overflowing, thinking that this could at least dilute the problem, if there is a problem. I’ll have another look in the morning to see if there’s an improvement.

The news was reassuring when I researched the gasping behaviour, because this could be entirely normal. The answer seems to be that when tadpoles start to change into froglets and their oxygen-hungry brains start developing, they can no longer get sufficient oxygen via the gills from the water. They begin to surface to supplement their supply from the air until eventually they crawl out of the pond with fully-formed lungs. I hope this is what’s happening. Anyway, here are some clips so you can see the behaviour and the murky water. If you have better research or first hand knowledge or corrections for me, please comment below.