questions about frog spawning behaiour (uk) (1 Viewer)

We have a small pond with only a few frogs, I have only ever seen 2 at the same time. 2miles further north my mum has a bigger pond with 100+ frogs (we know this cos we counted them when we relined the pond a couple of years ago!).

My mums pond is slightly colder than ours, sometimes hers is frozen when ours isn't.

Every year in late feb my mums frogs all come to life and her pond is a mass of writhing horny frogs all doing what comes naturally, resulting in loads of frogspawn and frothy "protein".

Our frogs generally dont get active until a couple of weeks later, and then it is a much more restrained affair than in my mums pond.

Most years I take some spawn from mums pond and put it in ours in order to try to up our frog numbers.

Here's the funny thing: Every time I put some spawn into our pond, the following day our female frog (s?) has laid some of her own, sometimes on top of the introduced spawn. As there is only 1 clump of our spawn I presume we only have 1 adult female frog.

This implies to me that the act of introducing spawn has turned on our female frog and stimulated her into laying her own.

When I mentioned this to my 82 year old mum she said "ooh, it must be like when humans watch porn!" |8.| |:$| ||

Anyway, why do our frogs get active later than mums, despite being further south? Is it because the sheer number of frogs in mums pond means that 1 of them is bound to get horny before the others which then triggers them all off?

This might also back up my theory that introducing spawn to my pond triggers off my few frogs?

Is it possible that I only have 1 adult female frog with no males of mating age, and that she might lay her spawn without the presence of an adult male, ie she is stimulated into laying unfertilised spawn in the hope that there is some male "seed" present in the water?

I have visions of a lonely female frog pining for a lover and then finding spawn in her pond and wondering how on earth she missed all the action!

Our pond is a good 8-9 years old, and I think that frogs become sexually mature at about 3 yrs?

Can't really answer any of your questions but what I will say is that it's not a good idea to move frog spawn from one pond to another. It only increases the chances of spreading invasive plants and diseases. Here's a couple of links but a quick search finds many more.

http://ruscombegreen.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/should-you-move-frog-spawn.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3335249/Gardeners-warned-about-moving-frogspawn.html

I agree with the point abou the danger of moving spawn and spreading diseases like Red Leg and Chytrid fungus.

Regarding the date of spawning, my spawn is regularly a couple of weeks later than others in the area.

Do you have any pond plants- oxygenators in your pond? Or a shallow area perhaps leading to a beach? Is there easy access in and a ramp of some sort to get out?
Frogs like to spawn in shallowish water, or where there are pond plants close to the surface. It could be because it is warmer, or more likely because the female "likes" the security of being able to rest on something and not get drowned in deep water.
I notice that they may take days in amplexus, but then all suddenly spawn after the first one has spawned, so there may be some truth in your suggestion.

I have 3 ponds, and they only congregate in one, and only spawn in one (the first I built).

My suggestions would be- make sure there is a shallow area, make sure there is a ramp out (even a manginal in a pot may give a suitable step out), and most importantly make sure there are lots of oxygenating plants.

I nearly forgot- do you have fish? a pump? a filter? Each of these will lead to your population not growing quickly.

And is there a really frog friendly pond in a neighbouring garden?