So, obviously, I tried to record their singing for you, since I suspect many of you think they just croak and don’t believe this serenade stuff. The scenes to try and capture the singing for you are ludicrous. It is always nearly midnight. I have a microphone attached to an extension wire into my camera and I strap the microphone to a domestic broom and put it by the pond, with the camera and me yards away. This video is what I recorded when the stream was working. However, I thought you wouldn’t hear it clearly or would be rushing to the loo because the water makes such a noise, so I pondered how to solve this. In what I thought was a masterstroke of genius, I remembered I have a master switch for all the garden power in the cellar. I decided to cancel the stream without having to crunch over the gravel path by the pond to the switch in the greenhouse (and so disturbing the frogs).

I have tried variations on this procedure for a few nights now to discover that the frogs only “sing” when the stream is running and the garden lights are on. If I turn off the lights or turn off the stream they go silent or all I get is the odd croak. They are all still there and I can see them swimming, plopping into the pond or just sitting – but they won’t “sing” unless the stream is springing – which seems apt, and is very interesting, but very dull from a video/audio point of view.

So, if you can manage to listen to this video without nipping to the loo and can block out the sound of the stream, you will hear frogs singing. And this means Spring has really sprung. Hooray!