Having re-homed the fish from my pond last year, I've been able to follow the progress of tadpoles that have been free to develop with only newts and water beetles as predators. The frogspawn was laid unusually late this year, some in the middle of February and the rest round about 10 March. I have been very surprised at how long metamorphosis takes. While there are lots of tiny froglets now, and most tadpoles have back legs at least, some are still legless. There are also some newt tadpoles with feathery gills.
