For about four years I was trying to photograph moor frogs (rana arvalis) when they are spawning in Spring. Never succeeded. Either I was travelling abroad or was too late and the spawning was already over. The cool thing about moor frogs is that males turn blue for a few days during the spawn season. This is usually around late March but it varies from year to year due to weather and temperatures. Its difficult to predict when its gonna happen and the best way to find them at the right time is to check the area regularly.

To find more about moor frogs check out Wikipedia or Amphibiaweb.org.

There are three known areas in Slovenia where they spawn, along Mura river in the NE part of the country, in Krakovski gozd in SE Slovenia and at Ljubljansko barje, not far from the Ljubljana city. This year I was determined to find and photograph them and since the forest they were supposed to spawn is not far from my home I walked there practically every day. Its tricky to find them because even if there are hundreds of ponds in the area they will all come to one place to spawn. So you need to find the exact place and be there at right time.

I enjoyed the forest walks very much. The beautiful setting with nicely preserved swamp forest and Spring snowflake flowers were just begging to be photographed. Also wildlife is very rich, when I was walking the forest I met many roe deer families, an elusive weasel, several hares and a lot of birds. There were numerous great tits, blue tits, nuthatches, greater woodpeckers, tree creepers as well as many other birds.

The only thing that I didn’t really like was getting up early, with sunrise. Also one of my rubber boots was leaking which I solved with duct tape the next day. At some places there are illegal garbage dumps which makes me mad every time I encounter one – how can people be so irresponsible?

It was the last week of March, a beautiful sunny day when I finally found them. Early in the morning I met with a colleague who joined me for an hour or so but we couldn’t locate them. I walked around for more than four hours, looking at every pond there was – nothing. When I already gave up for that day I met a fellow birder Miha. “A colleague explained to me where they are” he said, “but I can’t really find the location”. I looked at his improvised map and realised that I was already walking there a few days ago. let’s check it out we agreed and after 10 minutes of walk we arrived. And there they were – thousands of them!

What an incredible sight! Seeing a blue frog is already amazing, but thousands of them spawning its hard to describe! When we moved closer they all hid under the water, they are very shy and even the slightest movement is a sign for an alarm. Miha and I set up our cameras and waited motionless.  After 10-15 minutes they were all over again. Watching them swimming around, jumping, crawling over each other and listening to their croaking was a profound experience! And a cream on top was drumming of greater woodpecker in the distance. Miha was filming them with his Canon 5Dmkii and I was photographing them with my telephoto lens. Time went by quickly and after three hours we headed back.

In the next days I returned to photograph them again. One day I was lucky to find a couple on the ground that didn’t mind being photographed with macro lens. And on the third day most of the males were already loosing their blue colour. It all happened very quickly. On the last day I was walking the nearby meadow and found the Snake’s Head Fritillary flowers. There were hundreds of them and this is very beautiful sights (see the last photo in this post). They have numerous names in English; Snake’s Head Fritillary, Checkered Daffodil, Chess Flower, Frog-cup, Guinea-hen Flower, Leper Lily, Snake’s Head – in Slovenia we call them simply “Logarice”.

Yes, witnessing this spectacle of Nature is truly amazing experience and I am glad that I finally managed to find and photograph these lovely creatures. Its funny but when I am photographing wildlife and spend some time with my subject I become emotionally attached. Its hard to explain but this is how I am. The moor frogs are no exception. I do enjoy photography in general, but wildlife is my favourite, too bad that lack of time prevents me of doing it more often.

What do you think about moor frogs? Have you ever seen them? I hope you liked this article and photographs and you will return to read this blog in the future!