This time last year the pond was newly dug and freshly planted up. Nevertheless, we did transfer a bit of frog spawn into it from our garden pond in the hope that there would be sufficient nutritious stuff around to raise some baby amphibians.

During the Spring we very occasionally got sight of a tadpole and then, later, a little tadpole growing legs but never saw anything emerging from the water and so presumed that our attempt to colonise the pond had not been successful.

So we were delighted when this happened this week:

Several frogs must have made it through childhood and returned to spawn the next generation. Exciting pond news indeed, you must agree.

Ps my writing above is not lacking enthusiasm but it seems that it is somewhat lacking in the facts department. We have been doing a bit of reading up on frogs today and apparently frogs take two to three years until they are mature enough to mate and produce spawn. Therefore, this lovely spawn that has arrived must be from already grown frogs that have happened by chance upon the pond and thought it a nice place to raise some children.