Frogspawn!

Not the most beautiful of the signs of Spring from today - there were snowdrops in drifts in the graveyard - but quite dramatic really. Three weeks after being marooned in ice on the road down the Bishop's Glen, we caught sight of this large blob (I can't think what else to call it) of frogspawn in a flooded ditch. And it was large - about 2' across - so that I found myself wondering: is all this the work of one frog (the mind boggles) or is it a sort of collective thing? I'm thinking along the lines of one frog starting off in a favoured spot and then others taking her lead ...

I guess this may be a googleable question.

(Later) It is. This is what I found: Female frogs lay their eggs quite quickly, producing perhaps 1,000 in an hour and laying around 3 – 4,000 in total. When newly laid, the eggs sink to the bottom but as the jelly covering them gradually swells with pond water, they float to the surface, where they remain often for two or three weeks until they hatch into tadpoles. 


The mind still boggles. I'm glad I'm not a frog.