Country diary: It's frog-eat-frog-eat-toad-eat-newt in the pond | Kate Bradbury

Hove, East Sussex: Spring is hitting hard in the garden, but one spot in particular is seething with lifeI lie on my belly with my head as close to the pond as I can get without getting wet. For a few moments I join the watery world beneath me, of tiny brown midge larvae fizzing at the surface, of pond snails gliding over algae-fuzzed stones. In some parts the water is green with algae, in others it's black with tadpoles.If it wasn't for the tadpoles I would fish out the algae, but there are so many of them that I can't do so without harming them. So I watch them eat it instead, nibbling it off leaves on the surface, off the stones beneath. Some of the tadpoles are getting big now, and developing a taste for meat. It's around this time that I substitute their diet with fish flakes so they don't turn on each other, although it's too late for one clump of frogspawn that was laid last week, which is being devoured by its cousins. Continue reading...