Toads
What do you call an animal that has olive-brown warty skin, copper eyes and short back legs? A gardener’s best friend! Throughout the summer months, toads suck up unwanted garden visitors such as slugs and snails.
During the winter months, toads hunker down in piles of leaves, under compost heaps or nestled under logs or stones. You might even find them in old flowerpots.
Each spring, thousands of toads famously follow the exact same route to their breeding ponds. If more than 1,000 toads are known to hop across a road in a particular spot, it is dubbed a 'toad crossing’.
However, with busy roads often blocking their vital migration routes and the destruction of their breeding habitats, the common toad is becoming increasingly uncommon. It is estimated that 20 tonnes of unlucky toads are killed on the UK’s roads every year.
Common toad (Bufo bufo) in a garden flowerbed - Nick Upton/2020VISION
Join our Toad Watch
Keep an eye out for our warty friends and record sightings of toads, toadlets and toad crossings.
WildNet - Tom Marshall
Create a garden oasis
Visiting toads will love a mini-pond in your garden, and so will insects, birds and small mammals.
Adam Cormack
Make a toad abode
Give your warty garden visitors a safe place to nestle for the winter. An upturned flower pot, a log pile or a leaf pile are all welcomed spots by toads.