We went into winter with 4 frogs in our little goldfish pond – one big one, one medium sized frog and two about the size of a large lima bean.
As I have come to discover, when the air and water temperatures get cold enough, frogs just sink to the bottom and go semi-dormant. When that first warm spell hit in February, they came to life, then sunk out of sight when it got cold again. They are out now for good – I think – at least the big one (Billy Bull) and the medium frog (Bitty Bull) are out, but the two small ones are nowhere to be found. I think they entered the transfer portal and will croak for another pond this year. Either that or Billy Bull ate them both. We have seen lots of feathers in our pond recently leading me to believe Billy has been on a house finch diet since hibernation. Billy might be a lady frog. Female bullfrogs have huge appetites, needing plenty of energy as they produce up to 25,000 eggs per batch. That’s a lot of eggs!
So far, both frogs have been super skitzy, but Billy is now beginning to tolerate our presence. In a few more weeks, I hope to be able to toss him (or her) some meal worms as a snack. In the meantime, finches, be careful when you get a drink of water.