6
together, because in comparing the two they
can be sorted out. In general, the species
is smaller (up to 75 mm), the male has
dark, webbed feet and a filament at the
tip of the tail and hardly any breeding
crest. The throat is pale and has no
spots like the Smooth Newt, in both sexes.
In colouration the male is light or dark
olive green, speckled with dark green.
The belly is pale orange, yellow or golden,
sparsely spotted and speckled with brown,
sometimes uniform. The female is similar
in colour above, but the belly has fewer
spots or none at all.
The Common Frog continues to thrive in garden
ponds, but also good quantities of spawn
were laid at Aubrey Buxton Reserve in
Stansted, in water meadows at Manuden, and
in a number of ponds in Epping Forest, to name
but a few. Whilst being generally distrib-
uted in Essex, the records in northern squares
are fewer, partly due to lack of recording
and the more arable nature of the land being
less suitable for frogs.
The Common Toad continues to hold its own,
being abundant in Epping Forest and the south
west of Essex, fairly common in the south and
less so in the east. North Essex is less
well recorded as per the frog. New records
in 1985 came from Chatham Green near Great
Waltham where a small colony appears to breed
in the roadside ditch and at nearby Littley
Green, where some road deaths were recorded.
The roads take their toll at migration time
in Essex and large numbers of dead were seen
at Great Chesterford on the main road, and
also the Epping New Road near the Wake Valley
Ponds, another large spawning ground.