A second Winter is coming…

Posted on March 9, 2013 By Matt Wilson

On Thursday evening with some light rainfall I went to my local amphibian spot where hundreds of Common frogs (Rana temporaria) and Palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) appear after dark and cross a small road to reach their breeding pond. Despite the small amount of traffic, just one car driving down this road results in many amphibians being killed. So as always I headed on up to move as many as I could before the workers at the nearby 24 hour factory started or finished their shifts and drove by. Wandering around with my torch for about two hours I moved around 50 Common frogs and about 30 Palmate newts. As always there were some casualties but not as many as I’ve seen in previous years. Unfortunately a second Winter looks to move in from this weekend with estimated -5 temperatures for the start of the week. This unusually late cold spell could cause a certain mortality rate with amphibians which have started their reproduction but hopefully it won’t/can’t last for too much longer.