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Hiding in the watercress, waiting for the arrival of an unobservant insect or two. This frog always sported much darker markings than the rest of our colony. #frogFriday

A Rana temporaria with dark brown skin mottled with black is lying in the water with just its eyes and mouth above the surface. It is looking towards the right of the picture. The water over its back is acting like a mirror reflecting the sky. Bright green watercress leaves surround the frog's head.

I had a repeating stress dream last night about trying to teach Kemi Badenoch to code a report in Pascal. She kept getting it wrong, and I woke up exhausted. (We were both developers at Logica in the early 2000s, but I don't remember meeting her.)

Yesterday evening, I spotted this cute little fellow climbing through the iris leaves at the corner of the pond. It was on its way out of the pond for a night out in the undergrowth where no (reasonably small) slug would be safe. #frogFriday

A small Rana temporaria, about 3 cm long, is climbing through the long green leaves of an iris onto the concrete tile capping the pond wall. It is looking up at the camera. Its body is light brown with a few darker markings, while its legs are light grey. The edges of terracotta pots can be seen at the bottom and right.

Here's a juvenile frog happily patrolling the blanket weed at the edge of our pond. Insects regularly land on the blanket weed, and a keen frog can find the occasional slug on the retaining wall. #frogFriday

A juvenile yellow-beige Rana temporaria frog sits on blanket weed beside the retaining wall of the pond. The frog is facing to the right of the photo and has a few black markings on its back. Its back legs are a slightly darker brown and mottled with a dark brown. The frog's lips and lower jaw are white.

I'm loving "Murderbot" (apart from the opening credits), but watching it via Amazon Prime, which decided that the only action scene in episode three needed an advert popped up over it: "See what other subscribers are watching..." #murderbot

Show a leg! I didn't appreciate how long a frog's rear legs were until this gymnastic demonstration. A few minutes later, he was comfortably sitting on top of what is apparently a prime location for the capture of passing Lepidoptera. #frogFriday

A Rana temporaria frog is climbing up a green porcelain frog ornament. Captured mid-climb, the frog has one rear leg stretched down to the ground below. The leg appears to be twice as long as the frog's body. The frog is dark brown with black markings. Its legs have lighter green patches.

Visited the fantastic Utagawa Hiroshige exhibition at the British Museum this afternoon with my print-finisher daughter. The technical excellence of woodblock printing in the 1830s to 1850s never ceases to amaze me. Quite a surprise to find copies by Vincent van Gogh amongst the exhibits.

Colour woodblock print of an owl on a pine branch by Utagawa Hiroshige, printed in the 1830s. The owl has brown and black feathers, a beige chest, and around its eyes. The eyes are closed with yellow eyelids. It is dozing on a pine branch. There is a Japanese poem written on the right side of the print.

Detail of the geodesic roof over the British Museum Reading Room. At the centre, one of the triangular glass panels has its solar film missing and is lit up white instead of light green. My wife wishes to point out that she spotted that it would make an interesting photo!

I finally managed to get a picture of this shy little frog, who usually dives for cover as soon as a camera appears. This spot, close to the Peace Lily, is a favourite place to sunbathe, as a regular supply of flies land on the blanket weed, and most don't get a chance to take off again. #frogFriday

A small frog sits in the blanket weed against the wall of our pond. The frog is beige brown with a large dark patch around its tympanum. Its back legs are underwater and are lighter, mottled with dark brown and have a greenish tinge. It is intently watching the surface of the blanket weed for prey.

Here's one of our garden frogs ready to leap out of the watercress and viciously ambush any passing snail. I had to resort to a picture from a few years ago, as this week's camera roll is a pathetic string of photos of patches of water where frogs had been nanoseconds before. #frogFriday

A Rana temporaria frog sits on the edge of our pond surrounded by the shiny green leaves of watercress. The frog is yellowish brown, and only
its tympanum, just behind its eye, is noticeably darker. It has a reddish line down its back and much darker patches on its rear legs.

It's been a week of contrasts. Having lost all our tadpoles earlier in the week, today we spotted a group of three adolescent frogs sunbathing at the edge of the pond. That means we still have at least six frogs calling it home. More than we thought.

Earlier in the week, we found our tadpole enclosure capsized, and all its inhabitants were gone. We suspect a bird landed on the edge, and we hope the tadpoles escaped rather than getting eaten—I need to redesign it for next year.

#frogFriday

Rana temporaria, a few years old, patiently waits at the pond's edge for something interesting and edible to wander by. It is laying on blanket weed with half its body and rear legs underwater. Its body is light brown with darker brown markings and a large dark patch behind each eye. Its front legs are in the water and look lighter, almost grey.

We visited the National Maritime Museum to see the Pirates and Astrophotography exhibitions, so we had to arrive via the Thames. Both exhibitions were superb, with the image processing skills demonstrated in the photography gallery leaving me in awe.

A lovely display of ships' navigation lights at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Approximately 15 brass ships' lights hang from a frame near the ceiling. They display red, green, and white lights. White lights are mounted in the wall and along a corridor in the background.

I've worked in central London for years, but today was the first time I have seen Tower Bridge open. We passed HMS Cattistock (Royal Navy mine countermeasures vessel) just as it arrived at the bridge. However, I'm not sure the heavy machine guns are really necessary in central London.

HMS Cattistock, a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel, is about to go under Tower Bridge in London. The ship is painted matt grey with its "M31" pennant number painted on the hull. It has a couple of white radar domes and a winch holding bright green cable at the stern.
Behind is the Northern tower of the bridge, with the roadway raised to allow the ship passage. The bridge's structure is painted in two shades of blue and white. Tall business buildings around Leadenhall dominate the skyline behind.

A manned heavy machine gun on the HMS Cattistock as it passed under Tower Bridge in London. The gun is black, contrasting with the matt grey of most of the ship's structure. There are a variety of flags hanging above the gun. The gunner is dressed in dark blue with a camouflaged flak jacket. The funnel behind the gunner is painted with a large red rose emblem.

Under the surface, something mysterious lurks... The tadpoles are getting large now and will be thinking about growing some back legs soon. Just after taking this photo, I dropped some crushed Tetramin into the water, triggering the tadpoles' re-enactment of every piranha film ever. #frogFriday

A blurry view of Rana Temporaria tadpoles just below the surface of a pond. The tadpoles are shades of brown on top with lighter-speckled underbellies. Their eyes are clearly visible. The background is the inside of a grey perforated plant basket.

I was thrilled to see a couple of 2-3 cm frogs from last year's cohort sunbathing on top of the blanket weed this afternoon. Of course, directly, I swung a camera in their direction they dived for cover. So here's another frog demonstrating the pose from a few years ago. #frogFriday

A young Rana temporaria frog poses on some blanket weed. The frog has beige skin mottled with darker browns. It is looking up at the camera. The bright green shoots and white roots of some aquatic plants surround it.

Here's a #frogFriday photo taken from about 2 metres away, so the quality is not very good. This jolly little chap appears in this location every day when the sun reaches the corner of the pond. He's hoping that something interesting and juicy will wander by but is looking in the wrong direction.

The head of a European Brown frog is sticking out of the water at the edge of a pond. The frog is yellowish brown with black mottling and has one front foot against the side of the pond. A water snail is sneaking past behind him. Peace Lily shoots frame the tableau.

The first free-swimming hatchlings started escaping from their eggs on Wednesday and are now busy scraping algae off the sides of their enclosure. Here's a terrible photo of some hatchlings resting after escaping the spawn. #frogFriday

A blurry photo of eight or so Rana temporaria hatchlings resting on top of the frog spawn. They are black, with little differentiation between the body and tail. The water around them looks green-brown due to the spawn below the surface. Bright, silvery-white air bubbles reflect the sky.

I took this photo in 1999 when we still had a separate frog spawning pond. Unfortunately, our amphibian population has dramatically declined since then, and we've only had one clump of frogspawn this year. I suspect the recent increase in the local magpie population may be a factor. #frogFriday

A large Common European Frog is sitting on a blanket weed-covered brick with its left side to the camera. Another much smaller juvenile frog is scrambling across the adult's back. Both frogs are various shades of brown with highlights of yellow. Overhanging green leaves obscure the right top and bottom corners of the picture.

I'm beginning to think that Audible has a self-esteem problem...

Screenshot of the Android Audible app. In the background, there are the front covers of "Shroud" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and "Excession" and "Against a Dark Background" by Ian M. Banks. "The State of the Art" by Iain M. Banks is paused. A dialogue box says "Enjoying Audible?" and only gives one option: "No".

We have had our first clump of frogspawn this year, so here's a picture of some of our tadpoles from a few years ago. We kept this group in a tank for a few days, allowing me to light them from below to take this photo. #frogFriday

A light near the bottom of the frame backlights a group of tadpoles. The internal structures in some of the tadpole's heads can be made out, though their bodies are opaque. One tadpole near the top of the frame is sporting embryonic back legs.

Excited to find a clump of frogspawn in our pond this morning. I've broken out our hi-tech spawn protection system to protect it from our voracious fish. It's a planter basket with holes too small for the newly hatched tadpoles. It worked a treat last year, and we had a fine crop of froglets.

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