A pair of Common Frogs in their amplexus mating position.
This recording is of a chorus of around 50 mating frogs in my pond in mid Wales. Also audible are the songs of Blue Tit, Great Tit, Song Thrush, Wren (11'), Nuthatch (17'), and occasional gusts of wind in a clump of spruce close by.
The Common Frog Rana temporaria is our most widespread (and vociferous) amphibian here in Britain. Frogs spend most of the year on dry land, but congregate for mating in early spring. The first frogs begin to arrive in my pond every year around the beginning of february & mating, with the attendant frog chorus and laying of masses of frogspawn, takes place shortly afterwards. I always refer to St Valentine's day (14th February) as "frog day", since the two very often coincide!
The timing of the frogs' arrival seems to be relatively independent of weather conditions, although the actual mating process requires a warmish day with temperatures a few degrees above freezing. R.M. Savage*, in his outstanding work on the common frog, published a map of the UK showing spawning dates which correlate closely with annual rainfall: frogs in the wetter areas being first to spawn. For copyright reasons I'm unable to show the chart here, but versions of it can be found elsewhere on line.
*Savage, R.M. The Ecology and Life History of
the Common Frog Rana temporaria temporaria.
Pitman, London, 1961
(Out of print. Now available at archive.org)
Recorded: 2019-02-23 1030
Download full recording:
20min, 38MB, .ogg format
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