Chaps,
Last night, instead of drinking, clubbing and horizontal refreshment, I spent my Friday evening helping hundreds of toads cross a road to their spawning pond.. nothing unusual there. however unusually for the first time, at this site hundreds of lissotriton vulgaris and helveticus were found stranded in the road...
The pond has always supported good colonies of helveticus, vulgaris, bufo and temporaria. However only bufo has migrated outside of the wooded surround of the pond, into the urban area.
The UK suffered torrential rain yesterday, and I had to move over 100 assorted lissotrion that had started displaying/breeding in shallow puddles on the pavement and road adjacent to the woods.
Does anybody now the dispersal distence from the breeding site for lissotriton? I know bufo can be found 2k away from their breeding sites.
The greatest distence from the pond,into the tarmacced urban area that newts were found was 500m.. this seems a very great distence from suitable habitat..
Anybody have similar expirience?
I feel I now have top Karma as I rescued upward of 300 toads and 100 newts..
Kind regards
Paul