March Roundup

Great excitement! Overnight the frogs have done their thing and my pond has beautiful glistening clusters of spawn nestled in the underwater plants. When I went past to open the greenhouse this morning the two paramours were still there so I did not linger. Hopefully there will be more tonight.

After the hard winter and the somewhat late spring the bulbs have been a little disappointing this year. So far there has been no sign of the fabulous parrot feather tulips but here are some pictures of the ones who have been brave enough to poke their heads up.







Ah, lovely.

Spring

What a lovely time of year this is. April and May are full of so much promise. The days are getting longer and the mornings earlier and working in the garden is both peaceful and exciting.

The tadpoles have been hatched about a month now and are getting bigger. Soon they will begin to show little legs and will lose the gills that have kept them safely in the water so far. Soon they will turn carnivorous and I have a good supply of bloodworms for them to nibble on. Better that than they nibble on each other!


The newts are still with me although soon they will have laid their eggs and have moved on. At the moment I'm making the most of them while they are here. Photographing them is quite difficult as my camera finds it difficult to focus beneath the water surace so I'm afraid this is the best I can do.


Elsewhere the garden is blooming. The Bog Bean is flowering and the other pond plants are all coming to life after the winter cold. By the side of the pond, my Angelica has suddenly gone into overdrive. At this rate, she will be six foot by the summer!


Lastly, the bulb bed that took me so long to put in last autumn has rewarded my work tenfold. Look at this...


Doesn't that just make you feel glad to be alive.

Catching the sun

Elsewhere in the garden (away from the excitement of the new greenhouse) the tadpoles are growing well. Unsurprisingly they love the sun and there was a whole convention of them on Saturday soaking up the rays close to the surface.

Despite my initial fears, the newts don't seem to be making much of a dent in the numbers. They will shortly be entering their carnivorous stage and I'll be feeding them on bloodworms to keep them from eating the newt eggs!

With temperatures reaching 22 degrees C (whatever that is - I still think in F's) it has been a truly glorious weekend. Apart from disappearing during the hottest part of the day when the sun was directly overhead, the newts have had a fine old time, swimming happily in and out of the algae around the mare's tail.

Normally I would have removed the algae but it does no harm and at this stage the tadpoles are also using it for food. If you look you can see some of them enjoying a yummy algae treat.

This is a female palmate newt, slightly lighter in colour than her mate. The male's back feet are also a sooty black colour, whereas her's are the same as her body.

It was also lovely to see this stately gentleman sunning himself in the old pond. With the new des res not far away, it's always good to see that the old pond has not been abandoned.


The tadpoles are also becoming more adventurous and are starting to swim around. They are mostly tail with little black heads at the front and are less than a centimetre long. To them the pond must seem like an ocean.

Welcome to the world, little ones

What a wonderful sight. I have watched the little black dots in the frogspawn change to commas and then grow into these little chaps. Last night my pond saw its very first tadpoles swim free and stop to feed on the algae I have left there for them.





Aren't they beautiful!