Well, do they? I researched the answer to this question a couple of months ago when our local heron was spotted eyeing up our pond with the same level of intensity the Big Hairy Half of the Relationship reserves for menus featuring smokehouse ribs. I needn't actually have squandered the electricity on powering up the laptop, as the very next morning, the beaky raider visited three times. Knowing that we had lost almost all our frogspawn to heron attack in 2015 & 2016, the Rib-Fancier twice encouraged him to try his luck elsewhere. Before being chased off a third time, Mr Heron made a swift grab beneath the water & launched himself skywards with a frog in his beak.......a grim scenario ably illustrated by my youngest Neff - thanks, Leo - great picture!
I just love the expression on the frog's face.....I bet he looked exactly like this. Our garden is long, but narrow, with high privet hedges on both sides plus trees. Naughty heron visitors can only just clear enough height for take-off & then need to perform a tight turn before heading off to the river to feed our amphibians to their heronlets. So we got a good look at its long legs skimming the edge of our hedging, while it flapped madly to achieve its escape, with its scissor beak kept clamped around the latest of our pondy community to provide somebody's breakfast.
So......I'd already covered the area of the pond where the frogspawn was waiting to hatch. Following the frog kidnap & almost certain gobble, I covered the rest of it with netting, leaving a small gap for frogs to get in & out. I counted 24 breeding pairs this year. Heron sightings stopped. The tadpoles hatched & the frogs did what they always do. They hung around for a bit before taking themselves off back to the borders & potato patch ready for summer slug patrol. A few smaller ones stayed in the pond for tadpole-sitting duties. I removed the netting, to allow access to birds & hedgehogs for drinking & bathing.......as well as idle cats who can't be bothered to walk to the kitchen for the lovely clean water in their own bowl.
It's only a small pond - for wildlife, we don't have any fish in it. With the river Trent very close by, as well as the village ponds, you would probably wonder why a heron would even bother to have our pond, with all the difficulties in taking off again, on its breakfast radar. The very morning after the netting was removed, I was watering the greenhouse plants when there was a humungous PLONK on the roof. It was so loud I jumped & managed to spray the hose down the inside of my boots. I looked up & there was the heron sitting right above me. He stretched his wings out fully before taking off & with the amazing beak as well, it was astonishing to see how big they actually are at close quarters. Was this already a return visit? I suspect so. The pond had a murky film across the surface entirely consistent with a large pointy beak stirring up the muddy depths. And there were no frogs.
The tadpoles, however, have thrived this year. They're enormous, & have already got their back legs.
Although we are visited by frogs of all sizes, I'm conscious that breeding has been unsuccessful here for the last two years because all the frogspawn was lost to heron-slurpage. I think we should definitely see some tiny froglets this year.....& soon.
Now, we do have an anti-heron-device. It is visibly disturbed by Albert Whiskers & won't land if he is in the garden. It circles warily before going off to bother somebody else's wildlife. The problem is that herons visit early in the morning, at a time when Albert Whisker's objectives are almost entirely to do with getting on the bed & securing his breakfast. Sadly, guarding the place from heron raids doesn't even feature on his list. If he thought it was robbing his 'Dreamies' or getting a stroke it wasn't entitled, too, it would be a different matter!
Ah well, herons have nests to feed too, & despite the frog-thefts, they still remain one of my favourite birds.
Cheers,
C x
