vanishing toad spawn - why?

[lucas]

Our near neighbour has an even smaller pond than ours(about 4x2ft and only 18ins deep) but it was full of toadspawn,laid recently on the surface ,in watercress).Toad populations are said to be declining at an even faster rate then other amphibia so we really need to know what kind of environments we can create that they might thrive in.
Urban environments,with man-made ponds,such as ours,have a crucial role to play here...
Toads are terrific! We (all) need more of 'em!

[Adam Biran]

The pond in my garden - in which toads have bred successfully - is a bit less than 4ft long and about 3ft at its widest and about 2ft at its deepest.

Vegetation - a lot of duckweed plust starwort and hornwort.

On successful years toads and smooth newts have bred there abundatntly with no evidence of newts consuming the spawn.

On a particularly busy year one mating pair of toads spawned in a plastic tub of less than 2ft diameter. The tub was about 1ft deep but contained only a few inches of rain water and no plants.

This year things seem very quiet so far. I've only seen a couple of newts and have neither seen nor heard toads.

The pond has become quite murky over the years - I don't really maintain it as I'm loathed to disturb all the things that seem to live in the murk. Could it be that it's no longer attractive to amphibia?

[lucas]

Thanks for this reply,Adrian.Very interesting.I would say that it is worth clearing out some of the gunge from your pond in late autumn (well after the froglets have emerged) once every few years.Leave the gunge at side of pond so that shrimps,beetles etc can crawl back in.I doubt that the murkiness per se is putting off the toads though.Big unsolved puzzle,to me,still about why they spawn so prolifically in some years but not others...
However it's quite a good idea to leave other small areas of pond water around in buckets or bowls,near the main pond,just at spawning time since there will be no adult newts or fish in them to eat the spawn.As you say,in a 'busy' year,frogs and toads will spawn wherever they can,it seems!
Lucas

[lucas]

Just reading your first comment again ,Adam(sorry got yr name wrong in last post!).You imply that although the toadspawn disappears once every 3 years you do see it every year.Is that correct? What time of year does it arrive? Is it about the same time each year?Have you ever actually seen any predators(newts,fish,birds,foxes...) eating the spawn?
L

[miranda]

We have toadspawn in small london pond.It looks healthy and there hasnt been a frost but it doesnt seem to be developing.(it's about 10 days old).The pond has lots of weed and frog tadpoles which are developing normally.Both tadpoles and toadspawn are in separate nets within the pond to stop newts eating them.Am I just being impatient?

[miranda]

Yes.I was just being impatient:the toadspawn is starting to develop.Hooray!