Over the last week we have had a couple of prolific frogs filling our garden pond with their frogspawn. Rather than finding these jewel-like eggs first, I was made aware of them when I went out to look at the full moon last Wednesday night and HEARD the frogs singing from a few metres away… Well, ‘ribbetting’ – a term I contest because it was more like a purring, the two parents’ songs overlapping so there was this constant, bubbling sound that felt something like the essence of spring being birthed in a cauldron somewhere. I then realised I could hear them from my bedroom at the top of the house, even further away, and even when the window was closed! The frogs seem to have left the pond now, entrusting their many tiny ones to their destinies, as I haven’t heard or seen them since Sunday – but it was such a treat to have their beautiful, reassuring soundtrack to fall asleep to over most of the last week. I like the idea of sound being the cue for discovery in ‘the natural world’ – my housemate Ben is a bird expert and I will be joining him on some of his dawn and dusk walks soon, determined to learn more about the sound cues all around us in our ‘square mile’ / ‘milltir sgwar’ in Welsh.
Listen to this space!