Frog spawn at last.

I have been keeping an eye out for frog spawn for the past few weeks. In 2007, 2011 and 2012 it appeared in my garden pond in February. Frogs spawn as soon as they come out of hibernation, and, as we have experienced a mild winter and early spring, I thought they would be early this year, but they were not. Last year, when we had late snows the frog spawn did not appear until 12/04/13. I wondered if their lateness is due to the recent night time frosts. My garden is in a frost pocket and it is often colder that gardens higher up the valley sides. We have had 6 frosty mornings this March, but when I look back at my weather records for 2012 we had had 14 frosty mornings in the first 26 days of February (the frogspawn appeared the next day), so maybe frosts are not a deterrent to frog breeding, and it is the accumulation of degree days that counts see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_degree-day.  According to the Froglife  http://www.froglife.org/info-advice/frogs-and-toads-behaviour/website the night-time temperature needs to exceed 5 degrees centigrade for the frogs to emerge from hibernation.

Anyway, I hope plenty of tadpoles result from this year's spawning, and, after an unusual absence last year, the grass snakes that generally use my garden compost heaps as incubation sites are tempted back by lots of frogs for them to eat!