WE have had some frog spawn in the pond and Tom, our grandson, has been monitoring it with great interest. He saw it go through the initial dot phase, then the commas and then free-swimming tadpoles emerged, which are now making the magical transformation into frogs.

I think many of us as kids had that pleasure of seeing the frog spawn go through its metamorphosis and it’s great to see our grandson go through it now.

The word tadpole is of Middle English origin, the language in use from after the Norman Conquest to the 15th century. It is made up of ‘tadde’ for toad and ‘pol’ or ‘poll’ for head.

The lifecycle of the frog begins with eggs being laid in ponds and lakes (and hopefully not temporary puddles) and the tadpoles will grow in the egg for up to three weeks before emerging.

They stay completely under water and will eat vegetation after consuming the egg for the first two or three days.

Over the next 14 weeks, the metamorphosis occurs, with the tadpole developing lungs, growing initially back legs and then the fronts and the tail disappearing. Incredibly, they can match the rate of the change to the perceived level of danger, speeding it up if there appears to be an imminent threat.

Once they become frogs, they initially stay quite close to the original pond, eating small flies, slugs and snails.

After the devastation in the garden last summer from slugs noshing everything I planted, I hope they stick around in some numbers (although this year I'm going all out on beer traps - that'll sort them out!).

Anyway, frogs reach maturity at about four years old and will breed from two or three years, which is good news for my seedlings, and then the whole process will start again.

Although I found this hard to believe, there are parts of China where large tadpoles are eaten as a delicacy, but I can safely say our lot are in no danger!