Hi All and thanks for your replies and ideas.

Now to reply to some of your points. I thought I may have been looking in the wrong places or the frogs and toads might have been hiding from us but I go to this place all year round and have never spotted any evidence of any frogs or toads. I have also asked other regular visitors (some who sit at the lake edge for hours on end, day in, day out) and they also have not seen any at all, not even a tadpole! This just seems odd to me.

I am worried about Emilys' pollution idea. It is of course possible. The place where we go is approx 500 meters away from the River Mersey in Liverpool, it's been cleaned up lots in recent years but still, it's probably not the cleanest of rivers. It's also pretty close to Liverpool John Lennon Airport which is not the busiest airport in the World but still has quite a bit of air traffic. But still, none of this seems to deter the other wildlife that we often see there. Here is a link to a map so you can see for yourselves... http://goo.gl/maps/743ug

It's a long shot but something that crossed my mind is that maybe the frogs and toads are kept away by another wildlife? Does anyone know of anything that frogs and toads avoid cohabiting with? Maybe that's the reason??

It's such a shame there are no frogs there, they would be a wonderful addition to this beautiful place.

Please let me know your thoughts.