blog

The Nene Dragon Finder launch event poem

February 26, 2015 by Admin

Our Conservation Youth Worker Trainee wrote this poem about the River Nene Dragon Finder launch event:

Town Hall venue, impressive ceiling;

Everyone’s coming to the big revealing!

Get ready the banners, badges, projectors;

James and Nathan are the project’s directors.

Guests arriving! Greetings, drinks;

It’s starting! ‘Seats please!’ Latecomers sneak in!

Tales of dragons, adventure, and hedgehogs?!

Frogs, toads and newts of course are mentioned.

Now time for food, talking, meeting;

Even chat to the Mayor whilst we are eating!

‘A successful launch!’ ‘A joyful scene!’

‘Can’t wait to find dragons in the Nene!’

By Catherine Duerden

Frozen Frogs

January 26, 2015 by Admin

We all remember the birds in the cold. I know my mum swears they give her evils through the window if she’s late with the morning suet but how often do we spare a thought for the poor frogs over the winter time?

frozen frog

Generally our garden ponds are pretty quiet in winter. The plants don’t grow very much. Toads and most adult newts will be hanging out under logs, buried in mud or in compost heaps only to appear on the sunniest days (Click here for more advice on winter quarters in your garden for these animals). A few baby newts may overwinter in the water but most will have lost their gills in the autumn and returned to land. Many frogs however will be buried in the mud at the bottom of the pond breathing happily through their skin (how cool is that!?). They may occasionally also show themselves on warmer days.

So how can we make sure that our most treasured amphibian stays safe amongst the ooze?

Firstly, it is important to note that no matter what you do, some animals will die. Hopefully, by following these simple tips you can limit the numbers, but death is a fact of life and winter is often when animals are put to the greatest test. The majority of ponds won’t freeze solid even in the coldest weather. As long as your pond is more than 10cm deep, it should still contain liquid water at the bottom so you don’t need to worry that Kermit has found a new vocation as a novelty ice cube.

Prolonged freezing stops gases from moving in and out of the ponds and can lead to a lack of oxygen and build up of toxic gases as plants decompose. The best thing you can do about this is to clear any snow from the ice so light can reach the submerged plants and they can continue to produce oxygen. This will also make the pond easier to see and avoid for any young children (or carefree adults) making snowmen. You could also create a hole in the ice by leaving a pan of hot water to slowly melt through or leave a ball floating in the water. If you make the hole at the edge of the pond it has the added benefit of making drinking water available for other wildlife. I am sure it goes without saying, but please don’t put antifreeze or salt in the pond. It is also not a good idea to smash the ice as shards can damage your liner and the shockwaves can kill animals in the water.

So that’s it really. Clear the snow and make a hole and your frogs will stay comfortable and safe over the cold months. If you do find lots of dead frogs in your garden in the spring it is likely to be just winter kill, but do check out disease pages if you think it may be due to a disease and you can record this and send it to us through the Garden Wildlife Health project.

Make Volunteering One Of Your New Year Resolutions!

January 16, 2015 by Admin

Mike with volunteer Nicole — Mike Dilger with volunteer Nicole

After all the food, drink and excesses of Christmas comes a common pledge to change something for the better in the New Year.

As well as the usual promises, Froglife is encouraging people to take up volunteering in 2015.

Well, this year why not make a New Year’s resolution that will not only benefit you but also make a difference to your community by becoming a volunteer. The great thing about volunteering is that it’s so varied and flexible you can always find something to fit in with your lifestyle.

Vanessa Barber Froglife’s London Dragon Finder Project Manager said “Volunteering is about much more than just helping people or supporting worthy causes; it’s also about doing things you enjoy, meeting different people, increasing your skills – and having fun.”

Vanessa continues “Anyone can get involved with volunteering – whatever your interests, whatever your circumstances. Whether you have plenty of spare time or hardly any, we can find the right voluntary role for you.”

If your New Year’s resolution is to get more active or involved in your local community, Froglife has the perfect solution for you. Froglife is looking for volunteers to help us protect reptiles & amphibians; conserve and enhance their habitats and raise awareness in your local community.

Pria Ghosh London Dragon Finder Volunteer said “Through volunteering for Froglife I’ve learned practical skills for wildlife conservation as well an understanding of amphibian conservation in the UK, while meeting some really great and interesting people from all over London. It’s been so much fun, very rewarding and it helps our frogs!”

There are lots of different ways you could give your time to help us! We aim to make volunteering with us as fun and rewarding as possible, so that you get as much out of it as the wildlife you are helping.

You don’t always need knowledge or experience to get started, and we can often tailor volunteering posts around your needs and interests whether it be practical work digging ponds, helping our education team on a session or using your IT skills to help improve our web presence.

For more info please click here

Froglife ecologist snaps up BES photo prize

December 23, 2014 by Admin

Dr Silviu Petrovan, our Conservation Coordinator and an honorary
research associate at the University of Hull has won a prize in this year’s British Ecological Society’s photographic competition.

His beautifully composed picture of a dice snake (Natrix tessellata) won the ‘whole organisms and populations’ category.

S.Petrovan-Dice snake(Natrix tessellata) Romania

The dice snake is a semi-aquatic European species, typically predating on fish and sometimes amphibians. They have a highly developed sense of smell and can often be seen ‘tasting’ the environment, both on land and under water, with their very mobile tongue.

Silviu took the picture in April this year in south-west Romania. “This snake was in a pond on the side of the Danube, on the border between Romania and Serbia. It was constantly moving around in the shallow water and flicking its tongue in search of prey,” he says.

This is the fifth year running that one of Silviu’s entries has won a prize in the BES competition, reflecting his passion for photography as well as ecology.

“I find the natural environment fascinating and photography is an amazing way of capturing the moment, as well as recording important aspects of the work. In tropical areas photography can be an essential tool for species recognition,” he explains.

“These days I work a lot with custom made cameras for monitoring road tunnels for amphibians and it is amazing to see what goes on in such tunnels even in a semi-urban area in the UK.”

Two other of his images were highly commended by the judges.

An exhibition of images from the BES photographic competition is on show this week at the joint meeting of the BES and the Société Française d’Ecologie at the Grand Palais in Lille.

Croaking Science

December 23, 2014 by Admin

A new research paper was published in June by researchers at Exeter University analysing the data collected by Froglife in collaboration with the Institute of Zoology as part of the Frog Mortality Project. The study, called Anthropogenic and Ecological Drivers of Amphibian Disease was published in PLOS ONE and is open access. You can read the full study here: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127037

Common frog Froglife

This new paper is important for several reasons. We know from previous studies (Teacher et al. 2010) based from data collected as part of the same Froglife project, that common frog populations, particularly in the SE of England, have been strongly impacted by ranavirus. Ranaviruses are group of pathogens introduced in Europe from abroad most likely via the exotic pet trade, with goldfish or bullfrog transports. The disease they cause in amphibians, sometimes called red-leg disease, typically causes ulcerations on the skin, loss of limbs and death and common frogs are often killed in large numbers by it, both in the pond and in the garden, making this a heart-breaking event for people across the UK as they have to collect the dead frog bodies and burry them. As a consequence populations can entirely crash or they take a very long time to recover. In the study by Teacher et al. in 2010 frog numbers had declined 81% from 1996 to 2008 at sites where ranavirosis was causing recurring mortality events.

The new study from 2015 looks at associations between the severity of the ranavirus incidence and the presence of other species in the pond or differences in pond management. Understanding what makes the disease more severe could obviously help us prevent the worse kind of impacts on amphibian populations and hopefully contain the disease.

Interestingly, the authors have found that the severity of ranavirosis increases in the presence of exotic fish, typically goldfish. The use of garden chemicals was also associated with increased severity of the disease, so reducing or eliminating applications of slug pellets or herbicides in the garden, something that Froglife has been promoting for a very long time, now has even more relevance. Although the exact mechanisms through which fish make the disease outbreaks worse are unclear it is possible that fish amplify viral levels of the pathogen in the pond water or that their presence cause stress hormone production that reduces immune function in frogs. We know for a long time that amphibians develop differently in the presence of fish, responding to chemical cues in the water but the fact that fish presence is linked with disease incidents in an important find.

What you can do to help

Manage your garden and your garden pond in a wildlife friendly way, limit or eliminate the use of chemicals, use plenty of native species of plants and do not introduce fish into your pond. Also, do not move frogspawn or tadpoles between ponds as that can help spread diseases very quickly. If you suspect a case of ranavirus in a frog that you have found, please report it through the Garden Wildlife Health project.

The end of a successful Froglife youth project

December 23, 2014 by Admin

130205 Chase from Ken Stimpson in a puddle on Hampton NR We have been celebrating the end of a three-year successful youth project with the Mayor of Peterborough

Froglife’s Green Pathways is a three year BBC Children in Need funded project working with disadvantaged and vulnerable teenagers in Peterborough. We support young people with extra difficulties in their lives to improve green spaces for wildlife and people, and learn about and enjoy the environment. The project came to an end at the end of December and Ken Stimpson Community School kindly hosted a celebration event at the end of term.

Over the past 3 years we have worked with over 1800 young people, and during the 600 plus sessions, young people have improved 20 different green spaces and spent over 1250 hours outdoors. Young people created wildlife murals all across the city to improve neglected places, cleared litter to make green spaces nicer for the community and safer for wildlife, dug ponds, created wildlife areas and maintained community gardens.

The project uses nature as an outdoor therapy to help young people with a variety of issues and is particularly effective in those with behaviour problems and mental health issues.

Young people that have taken part in the project have said:

“It makes me feel happy when I go in the woods” (Student from Heltwate Special School)

“I am proud that I’m helping the community and that I am doing something good” (Student from Peterborough Regional College)

Those who attended the celebration event, found out more about the project through videos, photos and young people themselves and learnt about the new project that will follow on in the New Year. The Mayor of Peterborough presented certificates to recognise the achievements of particular young people and adult volunteers.

We were recently awarded over £111,000 from BBC Children in Need to continue our pioneering work with young people through the Green Pathways project. The new project will start in January with a part-time trainee to support our Conservation Youth Worker, a wider age range; participants can now be between 5-18 years old, and a wider geographical range; referrals will now come from Northampton and Fenland district as well as Peterborough.

Our Green Pathways’ Conservation Youth Worker Rebecca Neal said:

“I am so proud of what the young people have achieved on this project and it’s fantastic that the impact of our work is recognised and we can continue offering these life-changing opportunities in the future”

To find out more about the project please click here or contact the project officer Rebecca Neal on rebecca.neal@froglife.org or 01733 602102

blog

Footer