2005 - Whitby Naturalists

In late August during an evening of torrential rain after dry weather I
was in Fry.rp Dale and as darkness fell largc numbers of frogs and toads
appeared on the road.
Toads. I assumc all reports arc of the common toad. Toads brced
slightly later in the spring rhan frogs and I understand that times are
earlier in the south. I saw many rather small olive green toads in ponds
in Northern Francc in rnid-March and a month later in mid-April a
pond in Goathland was reporred to he "full of toads". The French
roads at least were completely fearless of humans and could be photo'
graphed and even picked up. They were male corrrmon toads; I saw no
females. h,{aies spcnc{ three or more weeks in the breeding ponds but
females mate, iay their eggs and leave after only a few days.
Two toads wcre rcportcd to have made a home in a pile of turves in a
garden in'S7atcrstead Avenue in April. A toad was reported in a
garden in lburndale and was identiiied as a toad because it appeared to
be livi.ng in a permanent home during the summer.
During August in the downpcur referred to above toacls appeared first
in the rain but I think by the time darkness fell they were outnumbered
by frogs.
Newts. A smooth newt "ilias seen in a nond in Aislabv.
CONCLUSIONS.
Our repriics and amphibians are all small and hard to see. I am surc
rnany nrorc arc living among us than have been reported; for example
for mairy years the club has had reports of toads in the old gas works
ponds but I was unable to verifu their existence this year. I bet they
were stili there though.
It is as important to know of a lack of animals where they used to be as
i.t is to have reports of sightings. For this reason I have to mcntion lwo
cases of failure in frog devek-ipment. In a garden in the'$Uest Cliff area,
where frogs usually brccd successfully, frogspalvn harched but later all
tadpoles inexpiicably died. The second case occuned in our chairman's
)4