First Toads and Frogs out yesterday and Spawn today

The first toads were moved by Toad Patrollers across the roads of Calderdale on the evening of Saturday 10th March. This was at a number of sites in Todmorden and also at Sowerby.

Well done to all concerned for being on the ball!

Today two of us found frogspawn at Widdop Reservoir, typically in a flooded rut in the track.

We could see the small gathering of frogs under the water including some in amplexus (paired) but didn't hear their chorus if they were making it.

Widdop is also a Toad breeding site, like several of our high reservoirs, but none were visible today.

A group of six then a pair of Grey-lag Geese flying over and circling round below us as we traversed the ridge above the reservoir was a spectacular sight in the sunshine.

Frogspawn at Widdop today, my first for this year.

I would be glad to hear of any other early spawnings.

Also very interesting were stumps and branches of dead trees weathering out of the peat in three places. These must have grown before the peat started building up.

This looked very like an oak stump. The glove is there for scale.