Frogs and Toads

The various ponds throughout the university, in college grounds and in the area behind Mountjoy 2, provide excellent breeding sites for frogs (above) and toads (below). Frogs lay large blogs of spawn in shallow water in spring, while toads deposit long strings of eggs around waterweeds. A very large toad population has developed in the large pond behind Mountjoy 2, which hosts hundreds of toads that emerge from their hibernation sites in Hollingside and Little High Woods in March and migrate to the pond, producing their distinctive barking mating calls when they arrive. By Congregation Day in late June the young toadlets are ready to leave the pond and leave the water to hunt for small insects and slugs in the grasslands and woodlands nearby.