Bog Myrtle & Peat

I see something new every time I visit the Chayne. The past few days have brought with them encouraging signs of spring and it is fascinating to watch the now familiar landscape coming to life. Dozens of skylarks seem to have arrived over the course of the last week, and I was delighted to hear the first curlew bubbling in the marsh beside the house on an early morning fox patrol last week. A greater spotted woodpecker sends an echoing drum across the open country from the broken firs behind the old barn, and as the days are becoming longer and warmer, things are looking bright.

We recently took the first steps towards converting a wet section of the woodcock wood into a system of ponds and pools, and a visit from two helpful friends got the project off to a flying start. Flooding two of the deep ditches between the fallen pine trees, we left them to stagnate and mellow into a sloppy mess. I visited today to restack some brash and found what I thought was a rather unpleasant frog carcase rotting at the bottom of one of the newly flooded pools. On a closer examination, the swollen body appeared to have too many limbs, and after an exploratory prod with a handy twig, I discovered something that I have never seen before.

It turns out that a female frog will come out of hibernation in early march, her stomach swollen with over a thousand eggs. Although still groggy, she is extremely sexually charged and is immediately grabbed by a male, who binds his arms around her neck and fixes her with a threatening stare. The attitude is known to scientists as “amplexus” and it takes such precedence over all other frog business that the couple enter a sort of sexual trance. They then sink to the bottom of the nearest body of water to complete the job in hand, and after just a few weeks, vast bulbs of frogspawn begin to appear.

Mating frogs were the last thing I had on my mind when I began to dig into the woodcock strip, but I am delighted that the habitat is now there for them to do as they will. I never know what to expect when I set off up to the Chayne, and even though frogs won’t boost bag numbers on August the 12^th, it’s nice to know that my labours are being appreciated.