Identifying spawn

[Elean0r]

Originally Posted by dampflippers

You should be ok pulling out blanket weed- you can put any spawn back that you pull out. You won't be able to tell if there are any newt eggs in it, but this early in the year they may not have started laying yet.

Ah, that's useful to know.

Do you know what sort of newts you have? Go out at night (looking where you are going to make sure you don't tread on any) with a torch and see if you can see any.

Haven't a clue I'm afraid, and I wouldn't like to hazard a guess because I've only seen them scurry away from the torchlight. They look quite small and pale and move remarkably quickly.

Some of the frog spawn has started hatching, which is a nice thing to see. It's deep enough in the water not to be affected by the heavy frosts we're still having.

There's been some more spawn over the last couple of days, but very small clumps. I've no idea if it's young female frogs laying their first ever eggs or more mature ones returning to finish off the job.

Back to identifying the spawn though, I've managed to get the Gallery working and found a picture of toad spawn and can see there's no chance of confusion.
Common Toad Spawn - Bufo bufo - Wildlife Photography