Frogspawn, plus a toad & spawn, and a newt & eggs

Just in case anyone is remotely interested in following the development of the frogspawn in my pond, which appeared on the night of Sat/Sun 15/16th March 1997, plus pictures of other amphibians:

First, what I used to describe as 'one of the proud parents', but I am reliably informed by Clive Cummins that this is in fact a common toad, and so couldn't have been responsible for the frogspawn (I don't seem to get toad-spawn in the pond): Bufo bufo: the 'Common Toad' in the U.K.

And now the spawn of the 'Common Frog' Rana temporaria:

Tuesday 18th March 1997. 3 days.	Sunday 23rd March 1997. 8 days.
Tuesday 25th March 1997. 10 days.	Saturday 29th March 1997. 14 days. Some tadpoles emerging.

Here are some free-swimming tadpoles photographed on May 21st 2001, along with some Great Pond Snails Limnaea stagnalis:

Since 1997, newts have appeared in the pond, and in 2000, I made a second small pond so as to allow tadpoles to avoid the attentions of the two fish which have lived in the first pond since 1992. In May 2001, I saw newts depositing their individual eggs on the water plants, so here are two developing eggs of the Smooth Newt Lissotriton vulgaris, formerly Triturus vulgaris:

Monday 21st May 2001. The originally spherical white embryo has elongated to 1-2mm.

Monday 21st May 2001. You can make out the spherical egg in this picture.

By 2003, I seem to have rather a lot of smooth newts. I know that they are supposed to spend the majority of their life out of water, but inevitably you tend to spot them whilst in the water. On the evening of June 2nd 2003, I saw 3 of them out of the water for the first time, perhaps encouraged by heavy rain during the previous night. Here is one on the pond-liner:

Bufo bufo (Common toad) Date: 2013 April 20 First update to this page for a while. Now at a different house. Anyway, I've just seen my first ever toad-spawn, in Milton Country Park (near Cambridge), where there were lots of adult toads and spawn in Todd's pit.