Toad spawn development

We followed this years toad spawn development with interest as we have not had toad spawn on the Nursery before.

Our toadlets have now moved away from the pond of their birth.

They were jumping around the paths and moist beds and hiding under the leaves of the moist plants. They are preparing for Autumn.

Young wildlife leave the pond in preparation for Autumn:

• Our young toadlets will stay on land throughout Winter into Spring next year.
• We are sure they will find plenty of safe hiding places for protection in the Nursery in the months and years to come.
• The young newts have now got legs & are leaving the pond too as Autumn approaches.
• They will also hide in the damp places in the Nursery to reappear in the years ahead.
• We had no frog spawn on the Nursery this year.

Toad Spawn Development timetable:

• 22nd April - first toad spawn strings with rounded eggs.
• 2nd May - the eggs were elongated and oval in shape inside the spawn string.
• Some had left the spawn string and were starting to swim individually as oval tadpoles.
• 7th May - some tadpoles with tails as well as others still lagging behind in the earlier stages of development.
• June and July - tadpoles were getting larger and swimming freely in the trough we had left completely untouched for their development.
• We also discovered baby newts in this trough too. We didn’t see these at egg stage but discovered them when we started to feed the toad tadpoles.
• All tadpoles fed with Early Stage Tadpole Food.
• 8th August - first toad tadpoles with back legs but with their tails still in place.
• We started feeding Late Stage Tadpole Food.
• 27th August (4 months from spawn) - some tiny toads hopping amongst the pond plants with 4 legs and no tails.
• 10th September some young toadlets had ventured out of the water and climbed amongst the moist plants nearby.

So across a 5 month period we have watched them develop from toad spawn to tiny toads smaller than 1cm long jumping around our moist areas.

In a few years time we should be inundated with adult toads as they return to the pond of their birth.

What a noisy day that will be!

For more toad facts see our Tips and Advice page - Help toads spawn in my pond.