Toad Rescuer

[alison]

I put Toad rescuer but I failed to say it was me who put them in danger in the first place.
My frog taddies are enormous now and starting to get further afield in the pond as they are in the shallows at the bottom of the pond but I have seen them moving higher up the deeper water.
As I have stated in another post about the plants I thought my BogBean was going crazy as the leaves were getting large and covering a lot of the topside of the pond. Further into the shallows there was watercress just getting going. When the leaves really came to life on the watercress I realised that the Bogbean was actually much larger watercress leaves.
The Bogbean was trying it's hardest to come up out of the shade of the watercress so I thought I would pull some of the cress out. The roots like to knit together on the watercress so as I was pulling stems out a lot of the roots were quite prominent with a lot of growth. I got a nice BIG pile together after a while and then when I put some down I suddenly noticed there was life on the roots and they were tiny toad taddies. I thought "Oh no have I pulled any others out when I slung the watercress across to the garden pile."
I quickly started looking on all the roots of the watercress and I found loads of babies and water insects so I started gathering them up as quickly as I could and placing them back in the pond. I was surprised how many of them were still alive in fact I don't think I saw any that were deceased. Phew what a relief. Toad Rescuer at your service.

[dampflippers]

I did the same with my frogbit- full of toadpoles!

Next year try to clear excess weed either in the autumn after baby toads, frogs and newts have left he pond, or early spring before forgspawn time, or after it is laid and before it hatches.

[alison]

I actually found the mum (or dad) toad yesterday. My pond has been leaking a little so after going round looking for the leak which has always been on the waterfall before I couldn't find anything. Our son is coming down this evening to bring the grandchildren for the weekend and he was the one who made the drystone wall round the pond so I will have him looking round to see where it has changed enough to leak. But on my looking I moved some of the stone and pulled the liner back and there was the toad happily sitting on the sand. Goodness knows how they get under the liner but I had better make sure it has gone by the time Mark starts looking..

[Ponddipperdave]

That's why I never throw any of my weeds away! I always keep them in buckets and the amount of wildlife you could be throwing away, it doesn't bear thinking about, Water hog louse, snail eggs Water shrimp, pond skaters and tons (not literally) of newt taddies. My froglets are leaving the pond now and every time I dip a net into the pond I get newts fully grown, one two & three years old. I pulled some weed out of the pond a couple of years ago and found a garland of Toadspawn around it so I put it back quickly.
The Weather has been really good for the pond this year.