At last!   Over the last week or so mini frogs have started appearing around the garden.   These guys are seriously small; they would happily sit on your finger tip, so please excuse the quality of the photos which were taken with my phone.   The micro frog in the photos tried to hop out of my way when I was sweeping up after cutting the grass at the weekend, hence its covering of grass and debris.   They are seriously difficult to photograph, since they never seem to sit still for more than a second or so.   I tried to get a pic of another one amongst the newly shortened grass, but got nothing but blurry shots and pictures of where it had been a moment ago.. The attrition rate of the hundreds that leave our pond must be huge, with birds and other predators taking their toll.   Our dog, Tilly seems very interested in that area of the garden too, so I suspect that she probably consumes her share too.

We have a pond, and from February on it pretty much gets filled with frogspawn.   By now I would normally expect to find no tadpoles left when I dip the pond.   This is normally my prompt to clean the pond out for the year, and to get a pump running to turn the pond into the feature that it is supposed to be.   This year is different. At the weekend a quick netting session was still catching loads of the little blighters, and they still have full tails and only vestigial legs.   Normally by now, (mid June in case you don't pick this story up at first posting), any weeding or other gardening in the area around the pond would disturb loads of miniature but perfectly formed little frogs.   This year they are way behind schedule.   Proof, if any were needed, of just how cold and miserable the weather has been so far this year.   Let’s hope it doesn’t continue like this! You can see that the tad in the picture still has a full tail and...