Common Frog Rana temporaria
It's easy to see the Common Frog. It hibernates in our pond each year, but leaves quite early in spring. It's less bound to water than the Edible Frog and you can find it all over your garden. The species is brown mainly, like in the top picture on the left, but sometimes you come across a rather green specimen, like the one in the second picture. In that case it looks like the edbile frog very much. Yet there is an easy way of telling the two species apart: The Common Frog has a dark brown spot on its cheeks, between the eye and the shoulder, which you will hardly ever see on the Edible Frog, and when it does have a brown spot there it is much smaller and of a lighter colour.
In the Low Lands of Europe (Holland and Belgium) there used to be an abundancy of Common Frogs, but there are less of them nowadays. The biggest problem seems to be the lowering of the level of ground water. Often done to please farmers the effect on nature is absolutely negative. Luckily measures are now taken to minimize the problem and we still don't have to worry about the number of frogs: there are still lots of them. Compared to his green nephews the Common frog awakes earlier (february or March) and makes less noise.
The eggs are deposited in lumps in March or April, depending on the weather and the temperature. All eggs or larvae you see before the month of June are almost ceraintly the Common Frogs. The other species mate and lay eggs later. Frogs lay their eggs in lumps, toads in chains and newts individually. The larvae grow fast. They feed on algae mainly.
