Midwife Toads

[gunhar]

Well it's almost June and I haven't heard them this year apart from 1 evening back in March.
Hopefully they have moved on to annoy other people in the Bedfordshire area.
Long may it continue.

[Bullseye]

I'd like them in my pond,but the racket from my Marshies/Edibles would probably drown them out !.

[r57]

Hi
I live in Bedford and found we had midwife toads a few weeks ago when they started bleeping - we were blaming a faulty car alarm as our garden is by a carpark for the flats in the next road!

They have taken up residence in a pile of rubble which is not intended to be a permanent garden feature - should we move it before the hibernation period.

I really like their bleeping and don't won't them to move off - we have a small pond and a couple of years ago we did have large tadpoles that then disappeared so perhaps that is when they first came to our garden

[lizard orchid]

Dear r57,
If you are planning to move the rubble pile, yes it would be best before hibernation time. With my own experience with this species they seem to like old walls with plenty of gaps between them. I have even heard them calling from a tiny hole in a tarmac drive right by someones front door of their house a few years ago here in Northamptonshire. I also have seen them in the Yorkshire sites under slabs of a patio making tunnels in the sand mix underneath the slabs as well as finding them under the slabs surrounding a garden pond also in a Yorkshire site. So if you have space in your garden then a rockery might be an ideal habitat such as surrounding a garden pond as a possible idea.

Brian Laney Northamptonshire county recorder for reptiles and amphibians.