On 1/4/07 08:46, in article , "Charlie
Pridham" wrote:


"Sacha" wrote in message
. uk...
For the first time ever, we have absolutely no toad spawn in our pond.
The
frog spawn has either been killed by frost or taken by a heron, so this is
NOT our best year! But the total absence of toad spawn puzzles us very
much. Has anyone else experienced that this year? After such a mild
winter
it seems very peculiar. Will they arrive later/soon/never? Any ideas
from
anyone?
--

Our toads usually lay theirs down deep so we never see the spawn just the
little black tadpoles later, but like you no frog spawn to be seen, same as
last year but we had plenty of tadpoles last year frog and toad, so I am
guessing that if the frogs think it may be cold they too go deeper and our
toads are always weeks later than the frogs.

I hope there is some further down but so far, there's no sign of it. Of
course, our trouble is the number of fish in that pond, so if we do get tads
we want to move some to the wildlife pond. But usually we see the strings
of toad spawn quite easily and after all, the winter has been pretty mild.
We now have 3 largeish ponds in the garden, so we're certainly doing our bit
for the amphibian world!

Your visiting Heron may well have had some adults but I did not realise they
would take spawn.

We're assuming that's what happened, though nobody actually saw it happen.
Ray saw the heron on the front lawn by the new pond there but while it could
grab any fish silly enough to swim to the edge, there's no way it could wade
into that pond. Next morning when he went out to the 'old' fishpond he
chased the heron off, all the fish had gone into hiding and a very large
clump of spawn was missing, so the evidence piles up. ;-)
BTW, hope you didn't get the gales we suffered last night. The wind was so
strong we were expecting to hear the crash of the last macrocarpa in the
church yard going over and it made sleep very difficult.
We're going to Tresco for a few days after Easter and I heard from Mike
Nelhams the other day that they've had a lot of gale and salt damage this
winter but "there's still loads to see", thank goodness!

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)