The end of February and first week of March offered at first a cold sunny, then exceptionally mild weather windows, and so my attention turned to re-experiencing the annual Common Frog spawning event at north-east Oxford’s Lye Valley LNR (SP547058). But the unseasonal conditions seemed to have caught the amphibians themselves unprepared.

The Friends of Lye Valley volunteer group that maintains this SSSI so excellently (pictured above) first reported frogs on 21st February. The site is just up the road from the supermarket where I shop most regularly, and so ensued four fair-weather visits that yielded just one frog first time around, then nothing further. I became disheartened. Where had they gone and what was happening? Then on 10th I received a call from Ewan saying the frogs had returned en masse over my prior working weekend. Game on!

We met on site next morning. Weather conditions were now much colder again but no matter. There must have been 100 or more Common Frog in the usual ponds, all singing their intent upon propagating the species. The soft chorus of croaking that filled the air was somehow very soothing in what is always a tranquil setting. What a transformation! Last year things were all over when I visited at around this time, and I found only spawn. My previous post herein (see here), containing the complete guide, was rather earlier in the last week of February 2022.

I believe the top right picture is of a male Common Frog and the one below it a female

The above (click to enlarge) are my favourite pictures from today. All are edited, some with creative intent. There were large quantities of spawn in two of the ponds and the juxtaposition of frogs with it in some of the images was something I found quite engaging. Very soon all this will be over for another season. The frogs will disperse again to whence they came across suburban Oxford, while the spawn will remain and hatch. Visitors to Lye Valley are asked not to enter the ponds or allow their dogs to do so, and not to disturb or remove spawn.