Spawn 2013

The spawn in shallow water/temporary pools certainly hatches more quickly with the warmer water but the downside is drying out.How many of us know of cart track ruts and such like that every year have lots of spawn, then very soon taddies and then after that dried out corpses. I was surprised one year to see dozens of newts in rapidly drying out cart track ruts which were seething with taddies as they were so easy to catch.

I know I post this every year, but...

Edited by Caleb - 07 Feb 2013 at 10:05am

Well as predicted, rapidly drying pools have left lots of spawn high and dry (despite a fairly frenzied bucket transfer programme on our part). What it has done though is given me an inkling of the size of the local population. When they spawn in the pond I rarely see or hear anything,just find the froglets later in the year. But this year we've had over 100 clumps.

Unfortunate set of circumstances this year.
Heavy rain at the weekend co-incided with heavy spawning.
Pond flooded and clumps were laid at lawn level.
The next couple of nights were very cold and a lot of the spawn, in the now lower water level pond, was affected by the ice.

Had a small clump appear overnight/this morning, the "eggs" seems rather small at the moment but will see how they expand over the next couple of days, with the promise of warmer weather, hopefully may get some more but never get alot as its a small pond