Do frogs have testosterone? I don't know, but what I do know is that there's amazing pent-up aggression in the frogs in our garden pond. This one surfaced just in front of my pocket camera which is small and waterproof - ideal for pond photography - but it's also silver.
The white throat patch of a frog, which inflates when it calls - also seems to be be part of its visual challenge display to rival males and I suspect that it probably mistook the bright gleam of my camera in the sunlight for a rival frog - so it lunged....
.... and he may well now have a bruised nose. You can see the eardrum quite nicely in this picture, just behind the eye.
Once male frogs find a mate they tend to hang on to them come what may - which makes them much more approachable............
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Great shots Phil.
ReplyDeleteThe frogs in my pond are very vocal at the moment, and a lot of frogspawn too lol
Attacked by a frog = that must be a first lol. No sign of any in my pond yet. Have never noticed the eardrum before.
ReplyDeleteGreat shots. They are fascinating to watch. I agree with you about the white throat, it is like a torch, so hard to get a good shot where the white is not overexposed and the rest of body not underexposed! I bet females track them down using the white as cue.
ReplyDeleteHi Keith, The frogs delivered the first load of spawn to our pond this week - looks like we are going to host a very large tadpole population!
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit alarming John!
ReplyDeleteI think you're right Africa. There behaviour seems to be quite complex to me - there's an awful lot of splashing and kicking water around and I think the ripples as well as the sound might have some kind of stimulus too. I once recorded their mating calls and played the recording back to a pond full of frogs, which all stopped 'purring', turned to face he speaker then began advancing towards it ...... quite intimidating!
ReplyDeleteLovely shots. We spotted the first frog spawn of the year yesterday when on a bike ride in our local forest. This was just in a large puddle in the track, but as this side track is currently blocked with at least 20 fallen trees, the spawn is in no danger of being squashed by vehicles.
ReplyDeleteWhen I checked today our small pond had eight separate blobs of spawn, swanscot - it's going to be crowded in there when the tadpoles hatch!
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