Shirley Curran normally writes about books, crosswords and skiing for GenevaLunch but it turns out she has another passion: ponds. She is our guest blogger, sharing the tresures of her Pays de Gex, France pond – not quite as close to the sky as my Alpine garden, but high enough.

By Shirley Curran

This morning I caught one of those rare moments – the yellow-collared grass-snakes (couleuvre à collier – natrix natrix) are usually very shy but this one was busy digesting an alpine newt (triton alpestre – triturus alpestris) he could barely move with his mouth so full, and I could even touch him. They are harmless to humans but wreak ravages on the newt, frog and tadpole population of the pond.

Yellow-collared grass snake, Pays de Gex garden

If you look carefully, you can see the newt’s feet. However, the newts are fairly voracious themselves – I have two varieties that are interbreeding – the alpine and the marbled kind (triton marbré – triturus marmoratus). They devour all the tadpoles!

My real loves are the yellow-bellied singing toads (sonneurs bombina variegata). We intervened to save them from being wiped out when a nearby pond was being bulldozed and they have returned to us every year since and breed in our ponds. They sing little high pitched notes and cheep and chatter very musically and softly.

They are intellingent and very curious and friendly – they like sitting on a warm hand.

Aquatic life in the Pays de Gex

Ed. note: I wrote to Shirley about my own surprising frog spawn, with questions because I’m new to frogs, and here is her reply:

My only advice about tadpoles is to be sure that they have somewhere they can put their legs and arms once they develop them. They are aquatic until then, but, at that moment, will drown if they can’t actually get a footing somewhere as they are amphibians from then on and need to be able to ‘walk’. They need stones near the water surface, or somewhere where they can get out of the pond. That’s why so many little kids have jars of frogspawn that die and rot – very sad.

Actually there’s a second bit of help – if you feed them dog or cat food in small quantities, or bits of raw meat, they will thrive on it – again, that is as they get their legs and change their diet (in a few weeks at your altitude – it’s altitude and temperature that control the speed of development). There are a couple of days before they become insectivore and leave the pond – I’m told they starve then, but doubt a lot of the rubbish that is in books, as my observations over the years don’t correspond.

The newts, toads, water snakes and so on will come by themselves. The snakes are a bit daunting at first, but are beautiful swimmers and very shy – and not at all dangerous.

Ed. again: so this leaves me wondering frogs? toads? the difference is? And here is what googling “frog toad difference” turns up: allaboutfrogs. We don’t have to declare them the experts, as Shirley reminds me, but I like to think all toads are frogs. And all frogs can become prince charmings.

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