PondNet Spawn Survey 2025: can you help us to spot Common Frog and Common Toad spawn?
1st December 2024
Today marks the first day of the 2025 PondNet Spawn Survey. We’re inviting people across the UK to get involved by recording Common Frog and Common Toad spawn they have spotted in their garden, community ponds, and out in the countryside.
Freshwater Habitats Trust has been collecting data on sightings of breeding frogs and toads since 2012. With 2,064 records added, the 2024 PondNet Spawn Survey was the biggest so far.
Sightings typically start in the South West, often before Christmas. Last year, the first record was from a large puddle near St Ives in Cornwall on 21st December, followed by another from a garden pond in the village of Lesnewth in the Valency Valley, North Cornwall on Christmas Eve.
The PondNet Spawn Survey helps to provide a better understanding of when and where frogs and toads are breeding. All of the records are submitted to the Record Pool, the UK’s dataset on herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians) run by Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) and Amphibian and Reptile Groups of the UK (ARG UK). This dataset is made available for national and local conservation purposes, so the PondNet Spawn Survey records could make a real difference for amphibians. Large datasets, particularly when they span decades, are invaluable for wildlife conservation.
Sightings can also help us to identify Priority Ponds, waterbodies that have a particularly high conservation value. These ponds support important freshwater species or rare community types, and the presence of Common Toad grants a pond Priority Pond status.
Freshwater Habitats Trust Communications and Media Manager Sarah Hoyle said: “We are very excited to launch the 2025 PondNet Spawn Survey, which is our biggest citizen science event of the year.
“The PondNet Spawn Survey is popular with people of all ages and is a great way to engage children with the awe and wonder of freshwater biodiversity. It also gives people the opportunity to contribute to national efforts to track population trends in two of our most enigmatic freshwater species.
“Anyone can get involved, whether you have a pond of your own or experience a chance encounter, and it’s easy to submit your sighting to our database. After a bumper survey year in 2024, let’s see if we can make this year’s survey even bigger.”
Freshwater Habitats Trust also encourages everyone taking part in the survey to share their love for toads, frogs and other freshwater life by posting photographs and videos of spawn they have spotted on social media, using the hashtag #SpawnSurvey and tagging Freshwater Habitats Trust. You can find us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Threads.
You can view all Spawn Survey records here, and submit your sightings here.
Spawn facts
- Amphibians live on land for much of the year but return to ponds to breed in spring. This means waterbodies can become extremely crowded.
- Frog spawn is laid in big clumps, whereas toad spawn forms long chains.
- Toad spawn is generally laid in deeper water than frog spawn.
- A single frog or toad will lay thousands of eggs. This is because eggs and tadpoles are very vulnerable to predators, so only a few will survive and become adults.
- It takes between two and four weeks for spawn to hatch and tadpoles to emerge.
- Freshwater Habitats Trust has a wealth of information on creating and managing ponds for wildlife. We offer a free booklet, Creating Garden Ponds for Wildlife, and publish The Pond Book, the most comprehensive guide available to creating and managing ponds. Our Freshwater Habitats Trust CEO Jeremy Biggs’ and Technical Director Penny Williams’ book Ponds, Pools and Puddles also contains a wealth of information on the importance of the world’s smallest and most undervalued freshwater habitats.