In the spring we rescued some tadpoles from a muddy puddle and introduced them to our new pond.

here must have been about a hundred of them but that’s a tiny amount compared to the average yield from frog spawn.

As soon as the tadpoles swam off to the depths of the pond we rarely saw them again and thought that they’d probably been eaten by newts and other predators. Then a few weeks later we started to see a handful of much larger tadpoles using the weed as cover.

Over the following days we noticed their tiny legs appearing and their tales shortening.  I knew it wouldn’t be long before they left the pond and took their chances on terra firma.  I made sure they could easily get out of the pond with some more well placed stones at the edge next to the plants.  Then one day I was weeding in the neighbouring flower border and found two hopping around in a clump of aubretia!  They still had little pointy tails and were barely two centimetres long.

We haven’t seen them since so I hope they have been sensible and found themselves somewhere safe. I suspect they are in the grass that we leave long at the top of the garden.
That means I shall have to cut it all back carefully with shears in the autumn to save them from the strimmer!