Spawn again

It wasn't there yesterday - but it's there now! Last year I blipped frog spawn here on February 9th but that was after a very cold winter. I've been checking this watery ditch close to my house for 'tapioca' every day as it never ceases to give me a thrill when I see this sign of new life back again, even though the ditch nearly always dries up as the year wears on.

First sightings this year were as usual in southwest England (Devon and Cornwall) and the mild climate of the Emerald Isle encourages Irish frogs to make an early start too. Phenology (the recording of natural events) has become a vital tool in measuring climate change, although it's been happening in informal ways for centuries. The founding father is regarded as one Robert Marsham who began recording Indications of Spring on his family estate in Norfolk in 1736. He continued to note down significant dates for the next 62 years recording some 27 natural events for more than 20 animals and plants. These included tree leafing times and the arrival of migrant birds. Now anyone can join in and contribute to a brilliant website called Nature's Calendar which logs a whole series of seasonal events and produces interactive maps on which you can see the progress of spring and autumn across the whole of the UK.

Tapioca: a much reviled/beloved milky pudding traditional to Britain, commonly known to school children as frog spawn, its gelatinous globules, each with central dot, closely resembling the amphibian eggmass. According to a survey by the BBC food magazine it is the Number 1 most hated school food of all time. (I rather liked it.)