Frog
(Rana temporaria)
If you go down to the Kirkhouse Woods in mid to late February, you’re sure of a big surprise: about 50 frogs, starting their year together. These fascinating and reliable creatures come out en masse, at the same spot and time, each year.
Frogs are not especially rare and are good environmental indicators; if they are doing well, it’s likely other things are too.
Their annual cycle begins in early spring, when frogspawn is common on the moorland above the Pipe Track and croaks can be heard near ponds and lochs. Frogs are usually found near lochs or garden ponds in spring, and in gardens, meadows and woods for the rest of the year.
The best time to see common frogs is spring, when they travel to water to breed. Females then lay spawn in a walnut-sized ball and the jelly expands on contact with water to form a loose clump. The eggs become tadpoles, then juveniles, then adults who breed in their turn. Frog tadpoles develop lungs earlier than toad tadpoles so can tolerate less oxygen in their water.
Frogs slow down in autumn and start finding places to hibernate. By mid-October, they are mostly bedded down and out of action until the following spring.
Fascinating fact:
Frogs and toads use their eyeballs to push food down their gullets. You see them shut their eyes as they swallow.
Frogs are gardeners’ friends, eating slugs and snails. They will also take bugs, woodlice, worms and beetles. They love shade, both for protection from the sun and predators and for cover as they hunt.
The female is considerably larger than the male, who clings to the back of his mate. Adults shuttle between land and water to breed, and while they start life in water juveniles may travel some distance on land before returning to water when it is time to mate.
Foxes, otters, badgers, weasels, herons and owls all prey on frogs. Many fish also eat the adults and tadpoles so you are unlikely to spot frogs in the same pond as fish. We Scots don’t tend to eat frogs but many people in other countries do.
Frogs are central to lots of legends and literature. They feature in plays by Aristophanes, fables by Aesop and haiku by the great Japanese poet Matsuo Basho, and the ancient Egyptians worshipped them as gods. The tradition of frogs in culture continues today, with Kermit the frog leading the way.
“Frog” is an Old English word similar to the German word for frog – “frosch”. Their Latin name is “temporaria” because people once thought frogs were temporary and created in spring, before disappearing in autumn.
As farming methods have reduced the number of ponds, frogs have adapted well by using garden ponds to breed. But please do not be tempted to lift spawn from another pond to start a frog population in your garden as doing so risks importing disease or undesirable plants. If you would like to help frogs, provide plenty of shady cover in your garden and work with neighbours to create wildlife corridors for travelling frogs to use.
Did you know
Frogs have smooth, moist skin and jump. Toads have drier skin and crawl.