Frogs, Toads And Newts 2012

[ehs284]

Help please. Apologies if this is breaking the rules for the forum as this is my first posting.

Today I cleaned out the old bath we are using as a water trough for the farmers sheep. In the bottom was a single newt (pretty sure it's a smooth newt) about 35mm long.. It was obviously not going to survive there for long and couldn't get out, so I've put it in a fish tank with shade, some mud and a heap of stones. What should I do now? Take it to a pond? Dig my own pond?

[SteveB]

They certainly catch frogs, so I don't see why they wouldn't catch newts as well.

"Lion Poo"/"Silent Roar"/"Lion Dung" may help to deter cats from the garden if you want.

On the other hand, factors like the depth of the pond or whether you've got goldfish (which like newts' eggs) can make a difference.

Don't have any fish in the pond as it's a wildlife pond. I think at it's deepest the pond is about 2' max.

[recklessabandon]

Help please. Apologies if this is breaking the rules for the forum as this is my first posting.

Today I cleaned out the old bath we are using as a water trough for the farmers sheep. In the bottom was a single newt (pretty sure it's a smooth newt) about 35mm long.. It was obviously not going to survive there for long and couldn't get out, so I've put it in a fish tank with shade, some mud and a heap of stones. What should I do now? Take it to a pond? Dig my own pond?

Get in touch with your local amphibian group who will advise. Smooth newts are not afforded the same protection as GCNs so don't get too hung up on the legals...

Ideally you it would be translocated into a local newt pond.

[SteveB]

The garden is crawling with tiny baby frogs, can bearly walk out there at the moment for nearlt treading on them.

Can't cut the lawn fro a while.

[frogesque]

Our taddies are quite big now and clearly growing legs. Surprisingly many survived the early ravages from the goldfish but yesterday I caught sight of our resident blackbird picking taddies off from the edge of the pond. Hopefully we will soon also have to go carefully when cutting the lawn

The goldfish have been at it as well with the females being vigourously chased by rauncy males. Very few of the eggs survive so I don't know if we will get any fry this year. None last year but the year before we had loads.

[frogesque]

Wahaey!!

The first of our froglets have emerged after the overnight rain. In the lawn, under rocks, at the poolside and even a couple in the greenhouse. Still loads of big taddies and it looks as if we have some small barely developed 'peter pans' as well.

I've also noticed we have some black leeches. Think they are harmless as don't seem to bother the fish or anything else.

[SteveB]

We have black leeches also, Loads of froglets everwhere & as you say, still got taddies.

Really gutted I have had to put down slug pellets, but they are doing serious damage in my garden