The Common Newt can be found throughout England. It prefers to live in garden ponds with lots of pond weed  and without fish, It spends more time on land than in water and thrives in an environment that is surrounded by lots of vegetation. I have even found common newts under a concrete path I was breaking up, with no pond in sight.

The male Common Newt is an orangy brown colour, with darker brown spots of different sizes. The female is almost the same colour but with smaller spots that are almost black in colour. Both the male and the female have orange undersides.  From  April to May the male Common Newt can be distinguished by  a long wavy crest running along the length of its body.

 

Common Newts lay up to two hundred eggs, wrapped individually in a water plant leaves, hence the need to have plenty of plant life growing in your pond.  After about three weeks the tadpoles will hatch out . They have long tails and feathery gills and  look like little fish darting about. In about three months they turn into Elfts (miniature adult newts) and leave the water to spend time on land  feeding on insects, worms and slugs.

 

 

The Common Frog is the amphibian, most likely, to be the first to take up residence in your new wildlife pond. The Common Frog is found throughout England in ponds and lakes which are surrounded by dense vegetation.

The Common Frog can be easily recognised by its yellow-brown colour with lots of dark spots and patches all over its body. Its orangey yellow coloured eyes with large black pupils stick out high up on its face. If you take a look at its back feet, it has five webbed toes.

Common Frogs start their lives as tiny black tadpoles hatched from frog spawn laid in jelly like clumps just under the surface of the pond. (Frog spawn is easily differentiated as Toad spawn is laid in strings).  As the tadpoles develop, they grow legs, first the back ones and then front ones and at the same time the tail shortens and eventually disappears. The tadpoles have now turned into tiny frogs, able to leave the pond to hunt for insects amongst the plants and grass around the margins and edge of your wildlife pond.

 

The Common Toad is probably the most widespread amphibian in England,  found in woodlands, rough grasslands, moors, and your garden pond. It actually spends most of its life on land. When breaking up old paths, I have even found them  living and breeding, apparently  trapped in small damp alcoves under concrete paths. But because they usually need to breed and lay  spawn in water there is normally a pond nearby  to head too, usually in masses, around February to March, to find partners, mate and lay spawn. Common toad spawn can be recognised  from frog spawn as its laid in strings.

 

The Common Toad is normally an olive-brown or a green-brown colour, but it can change its body colour to match its habitat, the toads I found trapped under concrete were almost white in colour. The common toads body is covered in tiny wart-like bumps which contain a poisonous substance to help keep many predators away, the underside of its body is normally pale grey.

 

Common Toads  tadpoles develop in the same way as I have described for frogs. The Spawn is recognisable, as its laid in strings, Frog spawn is laid in clumps. 

 

The male Damselfly  has a blue abdomen with black spots; the female, a yellow or bluish abdomen with variable dark markings and is common throughout England. Between May and September you will see the pair resting on vegetation near the wildlife pond.  and  flying together over the pond, mating and laying eggs on pond plants, just below the surface of the water.

 

The eggs hatch and the larvae, called nymphs, live in the pond until they are ready to climb up a plant stem  to moult into damselflies.