Hello everyone, it’s been a while hasn’t it?! I do apologise, but things got a bit hectic at this end. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I can get back to regular posting.
Now firstly, what happened to summer?! May was glorious, June too. But let’s face it, in the North East, August has been a bit of a wash out. But I can’t complain too much, because if it wasn’t for all the rain we’ve had, I wouldn’t have paid such close attention to the wonderful little creature that is the Common Frog (Rana temporaria).
Our neighbour has a pond, but before it was installed, we always occasionally had frogs visiting on particularly rainy nights. So as August was quite stormy and very rainy, we had a lots of froggy visitors, and I gained a new understanding of the phrase ‘It’s raining frogs.’
As frogs are amphibians, they can breath through their skin, and so they always need a layer of moisture on their skin to help them breathe. That is why, you are more likely to see them at night and on wet nights because they can explore further from e.g. a pond or a damp leaf pile etc.
So it just goes to show, you can get some unexpected visitors if you venture into the night when it is dark and stormy (be safe and sensible mind!). All you need is a jacket, shoes and a torch. You can attract frogs to your garden, by providing shelter for them, a Frogitat or a log pile, plenty of plants to again provide shelter, but also food and even better would be a pond. As I have said before, it doesn’t have to be fancy, a washing up bowl will do – if you look at the photos below, one of our visitors made themselves quite at home in an old bowl.
So please, step out of your house and explore. Connect to nature. You’ll thank me for it!
Love Charlotte
xoxo
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