This week there was indisputable evidence that winter is on its way out as the annual frog spawning spectacle got underway. It’s the first big wildlife event of the year here and is always eagerly anticipated.

Male frogs, many of which will have spent the winter hibernating at the bottom of the pond, gather in shallow waters and wait for the arriving females, whose bellies will already be swollen with spawn.

At this special time of year, a smooth churring noise issues forth from the pond. A vocal sac in the frog’s throat inflates and deflates with air, amplifying the vibrations from its vocal cords and producing the sound.

This frog’s throat is deflated here:

And now it is puffed out:

This is all very restrained when compared with many other frog species. Photos on Wiki Commons of an Indian bullfrog (photo: Dr Raju Kasambe CCA 4.0) and Wayanad bush frog (Chinmayisk CCA 4.0) are examples of much more extreme croaking:

Our frogs may be less flamboyant than these but I never tire of attempting to get good shots of them as they gather together at this time of year. Once spawning is over, most of the adult frogs will leave the water and spend the rest of the year in the meadows eating insects, slugs, snails and worms.

There always seem to be many more males, but some females have been turning up:

As usual the spawn is laid in very shallow water, leading us to worry that there won’t be enough rain to keep everything wet until the tadpoles hatch. But this year we have a backup plan – there are now four sizeable rainwater tanks tucked behind our new garage and being fed from its large roof. Hosepipes can be run from these tanks down to the pond if necessary to raise their water level and stop the spawn from drying out. We also plan to use them in the height of summer if the ponds look like they might lose all their water completely.

The success of this year’s spawning is due in no small part to our two scarecrows, MacKenzie and Dude, who have been completely successful in keeping the herons away and the frogs safe:

If the pair of badgers here are going to have any cubs this year, they will have been born by now. A couple of years ago a new tunnel was dug that emerges directly out into the meadows. There has been some recent spring cleaning underground and old bedding has been dragged out from this entrance:

We also have a camera on another sett entrance on the cliff where we are seeing a female going in and out. The cliff is very steep here but there is a nice, safe terrace in front of the hole and we are hoping that this is where the cubs might first emerge in April:

We had to move a pile of wood to get access to cut a hedge this week. A beetle, Oedemera femoralis, was found hibernating in amongst the wood:

He also had amazing eyes:

Once he has woken from hibernation, this nationally scarce beetle will be nocturnal, feeding on the pollen and nectar of ivy and willow. It is only the males that have those big thighs – in fact he is the rather dowdy cousin of the swollen-thighed beetle, Oedemara nobilis, photographed below in the meadows in June 2019:

Hazel doesn’t do very well on the dry chalk soils of the meadows. However, the few hazel trees that we have here are now out in flower. The male catkins produce pollen to waft around freely in the breezes before the deciduous trees get their leaves. There are also three female flowers shown here sitting above the catkins, in a position where they are less likely to be self pollinated. If a grain of pollen lands on them, they will develop into hazel nuts in the autumn.

The strange-looking female flowers of the hazel in more detail:

But hazel grows very well indeed on the wetter soils at the wood. One minute it seems like we have the whole of the winter stretching ahead to do the hazel coppicing and clearing that we had planned. But, in the blink of an eye, time is fast running out and we are seized with a bad dose of last-minute-itis as spring approaches, when the birds will start nesting and the dormice awaken. We are currently busy opening up a small clearing near the marjoram glade:

It may not be large but the sun is now satisfyingly hitting the woodland floor and before long there should be some understorey growth. Our wood management is geared towards supporting dormice who will eat the blossom and berries of these understorey plants:

We are building dead hedges with some of the cut material which will provide protected highways and shelter for the dormice:

We have also set aside some lovely poles that we hope to use for den-building with one of our little grandsons sometime soon. We want to show him what fun there is to be had at the wood.

This colourful species of jelly fungus found in the wood is a Tremella species – probably Tremella mesenterica:

My last photo today is of a grey seal haul-out that my brother came across on a walk on the Roseland Penninsula in Cornwall last weekend.

What an amazing and uplifting sight.