I saw all three of my frogs, Robyn! My pond is 1 year old this month. I worried about my frogs, especially after losing over half of the water in mid winter. But I saw them all poke their heads up on Saturday. We had such a beautiful weekend.....81 Saturday and 85 Sunday. My water temperature was 65 degrees Friday so I feed my "starving" fish!! All winter they would take cover when they saw me. Now since I have fed them, they follow me!! I really have spring fever. I hope everybody else has good news about their ponds too!! :D

Did you raise your frogs from tads directly outdoors in your pond or did they begin in a tank? I'm kinda new to this so forgive me if this has already been asked previously. Spring fever has definately hit here in MN. We had such nice weather for a couple weeks and now the snow is back as of yesterday. If you have a small container pond in the ground during the summer only, is it possible that the frogs will return back to the small pond or can they be put in a tank indoors over the winter? Is this unheard of usually, like I say I'm new to the learning here but want to learn more about how to attract frogs into my gardens. Are there recommended plant varities I could put in that may bring them flooding in (ha ha ha) A girl can hope can't she? I can remember the frog population when I was a little girl here in Minnesota and I wanted to do something to bring the frogs back to my backyard the way I remember them once being. So here I am after finding this great forum.

Yes, I have had my frogs since tadpoles. I put them in the pond the day I got them late last spring. My grandson's friend gave them to me from his pond......he put them in his pond from the creek the summer before. So, Robyn says they are probably Bullfrogs. I thought the tadpoles had died because I didn't see them for awhile. Then all of a sudden I started seeing frogs popping up!! It was great!!! I am sorry the snow is back to Minnesota! But just remember....SPRING IS COMING!!!!! Robyn can tell you about over-wintering frogs. She has a section just about frogs. But I think regular frogs will probably come to a container pond in the ground. The toads (I guess that is what you call regular frogs) laid eggs in my pond last spring and before I knew it baby frogs were hopping all over the place!! Good luck, Char!! I hope you get the frogs you are wanting. Look for the section in this forum on frogs. Robyn is VERY knowledgable!!

My page on overwintering and raising frogs/tadpoles is at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/frog3.htm
I'm working on renovating my web pages but it may be a year before I get to the amphibians. I'm going to add lots more when I do. I'm going to try to take a video of the breeding wood frogs tonight! I finally read enough of the directions to maybe make the digital camera record short movies.

Toads are not frogs but are close relatives.

It was hot here in MD this weekend too. I fed the fish. Boy did they scarf up the food! I saw wood frogs and a pickerel frog. I haven't seen the green frogs or bullfrog yet. I hope they're okay.

To attract frogs, you want a small vernal pond. Vernal means there are no fish, and it dries up in the summer or mostly so (or at least the frogs think it does). You can have just a pond in the warm months for the amphibians to breed in. When you put it up in the fall, if there are any tadpoles remaining, you can either overwinter them indoors in an aquarium or put them in a larger pond with enough depth that it won't freeze to the bottom. If you have frogs that need to overwinter in water (green frogs, pickerel frogs, bullfrogs, etc.), and you don't have a deep pond, they can also be overwintered indoors which I cover on my page (link above).

Thanks Ellen your frogs / toads sound wonderful and they must just love whatever it is your pond has to offer to them. Which must be plenty because their back peeking their heads out to look and see if you returned also. Sounds corny but probably true.
Your right Spring is just around the corner. Won't be long and the ground will be soft enough to work and then the season really begins. Gotta love those new plants ya know.

Robyn
Thanks for the writing on the vernal pond and I am excited about checking out the link to the frog page to see what I can find there too. Good luck on your renovation of the web stuff, I'm sure it can take alot of time but in the end the results are well worth the effort, right? My hats off to you and hoping that someday I will maybe have that same knowledge. Ya just never know.

faithinfrogs
Char

Geez-oh-man!!! :o

I had to look this up and just to see if I wrote it... Wow!! Sounds like me :P ....

I saw my fish a few weeks back....I thought when the pond drained partially during the Winter months and I didn't see them, I probably wouldn't see them alive..... and man I was ecstatic to see them looking at me when the weather was particularly warm!


adreamer2

adreamer2,
What a coincidence!!! Glad yours survived too!!! It IS exciting!! What happened for your pond to lose water?

Char,
I bet the frogs will find you!! After the little frogs were able to hop out of my pond, they took off. Don't know where they went. But there were alot of them. Hopefully they are still hanging around somewhere. I have green tree frogs on my front porch. They have had babies and the babies come too!! I found a green tree frog a few years ago and took it home and put it in the bushes at my house. Now, I have a whole family!! In the summer when they come out from wherever at night (they only visit at night), I leave my porch lights on. The bugs come to the light and the frogs eat GOOD!! :D In the fall when I bring my plants in from the porch, I usually have to chase a tree frog or two around my kitchen!!

It is a funny story about when I brought the tree frog home. My daughter and grandson (who was about 2 years old) where in the back seat of my car. Angie was holding the frog while I drove. It was at night. The frog jumped out of her hand and my grandson started screaming. I turned the light on in the car and the frog was spread eagle across his face!! We laughed so hard. I still laugh thinking of it.

What a great story EllenR. A simple ride in the car with Grandma, Mom and THE FROG. This will be a story to write down on the books. A good laugh between mom and daughter, how wonderful. Ya know It's those hallmark moments that happen by chance that are remembered forever.
I would go frog hunting with a friend (we we're about 10 years old) for my neighbors father to go fishing with and at the time I didn't realize how beautiful of a creature frogs really are. ( I think I realized it just didn't think about a fish gobbling it up) I can remember the best time to go out was after a good rain then that evening they would flock to the yard light area of the neighbors drive across the road from us. We had a blast just chasing them around. They we're slippery little buggers and fast. We would only usually end up with only a few by the time we we're done because the 5 gallon pail we would put them in never had a lid on it. So half the time they would jump right back out of the bucket anyway.

adreamer2- I'm glad your fish were there to greet your return also. What kind of fish and pond do you have?