Toad Tadpoles at Hythe, Kent

These were at Brockhill Country Park and there were literally thousands!

Frog after the rain

Picture of an almost 2 inch Common Frog Juvenile after a spring shower.

Smooth Newt Feeding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0_7iAgruao
video of a newt feeding in my pond

New Pond Liner

New pond is 1.9m by 1m ish and has just been planted up. 3 more newts have arrived so we have 2 females and 4 males.

 Blanket weed is starting to form but unlike most other pond owners i am quite happy because it provides a nursery for so many insects and im sure newt larvae would love them as i have seen in Northala Fields in W.London. 

 This is the 'deep end', but it's only about 28 cm at the deepest. The new clumps of Elodea should quickly grow and form egg laying sites for the Smooth Newts. The male's tail waggling seem not to interest the females at the moment but who knows what they do at night.

 The new bark and wood pile has a lot of millipedes, slugs and worms so the froglets love it.

 This is a 'herb shelter' that provides a small retreat which is being used by a couple of last years froglets.

Spring is here with a bang

Currently 18 degrees celsius here in North Kent. The last years froglets are active and the first newts are in the pond.

 Female Smooth Newt. Notice the bulge of the eggs. Smooth Newts may have more than a hundred each spring.

 2 year old Common Froglet. Very lively and more reddish compared to the ones from last year.

Horrible Winter-Spring

 The pond: late 2011

 Egg laying female Smooth Newt amongst algae and frog and toad tadpoles from spawn introduced and toads that visited earlier.

Male Smooth Newt 2012

 

Sorry for no recent posts! The weather is getting more mild but there is supposed to be another frost next week. No newt activity so far although newt larvae are still in the pond. Lots of cyclops too starting to appear and crocus and daffodils are blooming. Hopefully I will be able to go herping next weekend at Berengrave NR. Also I hope to get a new liner for the pond to make it bigger.

Pondlife!

We have a resident pondskater, about four clumps of frogspawn which we have got to establish a colony of Common Frogs and two Smooth Newts probably hoping to breed although the male's crest is rather small yet and the female doesn't look very full of eggs. Two clumps of frogspawn have hatched, the first now has free swimming tadpoles whilst the other still has gilled tadpoles; both of which are snacking at the other frogspawn! Also last years froglet was swimming around and there is some toadspawn wrapped in the emergent plants.