On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:04:03 +0100, Jim Lawton <***@getit.someotherway>
wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I think what might have happened, is that our ponds
might be a bit less attractive this year, and the frogs have found somewhere
else. Thinking about it, in the past, even though we have always had two ponds,
spawning always took place in only one of them, so it's not like frogs got
"shared out", and if they've found a neighbour's pond, then there will be *none*
in here.
I've been slowly relining our pond area, and now I've got three largish (about 6
x 4ft) preformed ponds. This year, the marshy area has been drier than previous
years, maybe that's what did it.
Before next year, I'm going to reline the marshy bit with some builder's
polythene, just to make it wetter at spawning time. Hopefully that will raise us
back to 5star status :-)
(over the years I've tried all sorts of things. At first I had a huge totally
unlined area which I "puddled" (we're on dense clay here), but then we had the
drought year, and I had to keep topping it up. Then I lined the whole area with
builders' damp-proof membrane, which was fine for a year until a heron (believe
it or not) put his beak through it. I also at that time had a second smaller
pond lined with butyl.
Both these liners perished eventually to the state where in summer the ponds had
to be topped up, and that was when I got my current hard liners.
So when I said nothing much had changed in the environment, maybe I was wrong. I
still need a shallower marshy gloopy sort of area for breeding.
Cheers Jim
www.jimlawton.info