More on Frogs - 2nd March 2026

What a difference four days have made!

I returned to the same pools where I had watched a dozen or so lethargic frogs commencing their annual breeding cycle a few days ago but this time the favoured pool was alive with activity as the number of frogs had risen to a much more energised sixty.

The weather too had improved from last Thursday's chilly, grey and overcast morning with a northeast wind unhelpfully gusting down the valley, to one of sunshine and milder wind from the southwest signifying Spring had truly arrived. No doubt about it.

Walking down the valley a Blackcap sang from the surrounding trees, the pure notes of its song an exultant exclamation briefly dominating the stillness of the valley. A sulphur yellow Brimstone butterfly flickered an erratic course across the shiny heads of already flowering Lesser Celandines, each individual eight petalled flower a fallen yellow star, shining coyly in the damp fen at my feet.

Spring the sweet Spring.

Arriving at the pools it was a scene of ceaseless, restless movement in that particular pool I had stood over a few days ago. A myriad of frog heads poked above the water, all facing the sun which illuminated each frog's china white throat, swelling to produce an overall gentle purring.To call it croaking would be a gross slur on the soothing pleasant sound the chorusing frogs produced.

Truly a frog choir.

I looked down from the boardwalk on which I stood to the edge of the pool and noted that, unlike my last visit, jellied mounds of frog spawn now lay like grey clouds at the water's shallow edge whilst a multitude of frogs, driven by nuptial ardour, clambered heedless and carelessly amongst it.

The majority of frogs were males, barging and jostling each other in blunt rivalry and it was hard to discern an obvious female but by paying close attention we found a pair in amplexus (Latin for embrace) where the male frog clings tightly to the female in a mating hug, riding on her back and waiting for the moment when she ejects her spawn which he then fertilises as it emerges.

The difference in colour and size between the two was noticeable, the male grey and smaller, with white throat swelling and  deflating as he produced his gentle purring, the female larger, bulky even, her sides swollen with spawn and coloured a contrasting chestnut brown

They tumbled around in the water amongst the spawn and emerging green spikes of reed, their coupling rendering them clumsy and unbalanced, the pair constantly harassed by other males seeking to usurp the incumbent male but all were destined to failure as her mate, chosen for the quality of his purring, clung tightly and resolutely to her back.

We noted the variety of colours in the individual frogs, the majority bluish grey with white throats, but others in varying shades of olive with distinct barring and spots on body and legs while yet others, very much in the minority, were unmarked reddish brown and larger. Could these larger reddish individuals be females? My knowledge of frog ecology is sadly lacking but I read that Common Frogs  can vary widely in colour from green to brown and even red or yellow and all shades in between.There were certainly a mixture of colours in the pool today.The two reddish brown individuals I observed being particularly striking.

A variety of different coloured Common Frogs. Apparently all are males - see the comment at the end 

There are always questions and conundrums in situations such as this.The more you observe the more you realise how much there is still to learn. I know so little about these secretive amphibians, rarely encountering them apart from these few days in early Spring.

We stood for almost an hour, fascinated by the evolving activity as the frogs appeared and disappeared in the clear water, rising to face the sun, floating on the surface or sinking to the bottom of the pond, jostling and barging in sudden bursts of frenzied movement then to lie still and watchful.

                                       It will all be over by the end of the week