Last night I posted a picture of 'frogs a-courting' in my 365 album. Today the pond was laden with spawn.
Assuming the conditions stay good I'll try to keep a regular photo record of the changes in the spawn over the coming weeks. The spawn is almost two weeks later than last year, when it appeared on 1st March. The tadpoles emerged after about two weeks on March 16th 2008, so this year I would expect to see them hatch around the end of the month. The late start is no doubt due to the much colder weather we've had.
But I promised a special treat, and it takes the form of a very blurred photo, but the first success with trail cam that arrived earlier in the week. The cam takes infra red shots, and I think the lens may have had moisture on it hence the poor quality of this photo (ones of me taken while I was testing it are far clearer, but deeply gruesome!). But it's a fox, and as I've said before… foxes get posted.
Fox taken with GL80 trail cam
I need to play around with distance settings and position to see if I can improve the clarity of the image. It also takes video, which is how it's currently set while I type this. it will be interesting to see what I have on it by morning.
Camera note: all the spawn shots taken with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens. the first two used the Canon 430EX flash unit, and the last two the Sigma EM-140 DG ring flash. The fox was caught with the GL80 stealth-trail-cam.
Vulpes vulpes
14 Mar 2009Nice spawn – look forward to seeing the progress updates…last year's were fascinating! Congrats on the trail cam – I wonder if SittingFox influenced your decision! :whistle:
gdare
14 Mar 2009Trail cams are precious :up:
SittingFox
14 Mar 2009I actually really like that picture of the fox. It says "mysterious nocturnal creature" all over it :up:
I wonder if your trail cam will capture your badger? I'll be pretty jealous if it does 😀
Great shots of the frogspawn, too 🙂
Flying Red Fox Blog
14 Mar 2009Beautiful Frogspawn shots there 😀 I like the *Ghost Fox* too! 😉
Iam off to Arundel Wildfowl later today if the weather keeps sunny! 😀
annoushkiss
14 Mar 2009I like the pictures of the spawn, especially the first one. :up: And I consider the shot of the fox to be very good! That infra red cam gives very special effect to the image.
Words
14 Mar 2009Anna, thanks. I'm sure I can do better with the infra red cam with a bit more practice. I was pleased to get anything at all last night. There's a lot of guesswork involved in lining it up.
Words
14 Mar 2009Mark, thanks. I enjoy taking shots of the spawn. It takes a bit of time to get it set up right but is worth the effort. The sun is just coming out here now, so hopefully it will be the same over at Arundel this afternoon.
Words
14 Mar 2009Darko, I think I'll have fun with it. 😀
Words
14 Mar 2009Adele, I the camera on last night, set to video, but it was aimed too high. WIll adjust things for tonight. A badger would be wonderful. 🙂
Words
14 Mar 2009Vulpes, we seem to have done well with the spawn this year, though I just found some on the path so we may have some short-sighted frogs in the vicinity 😉 I've been checking several sites with trail-cams, including SittingFox's site (they're so good for letting you know what's around), but if you want to see some of the very best trail cam work take a look at Camera trap Codger. Absolutely stunning work (but with much better gear than most of us will ever get close to).
FrogBoots
15 Mar 2009:happy: I hope you'll have a bumper froggy crop this year! :up: And I too love the fox "shot in the dark." Very encouraging, and I know you'll get more…I look forward to seeing them! 🙂
Words
15 Mar 2009Thanks FB. I'll post some frog updates later as promised.
Words
15 Mar 2009Thanks Cynthia!
Cynthia23
15 Mar 2009Great! Looking forward to the updates :up: