17-05-2025
Giving toads a hand is vital for their fragile world
Each day in this remarkably dry spring, I have eagerly checked the progress of the toads in our deepest garden pond. This morning small fat tadpoles, now with markedly visible back legs, were animatedly swimming in the clear, cool water. Nature is all about reproduction: productivity is the key for species that need to replace the population.
For toads, the cycle entails females laying long strings of spawn among aquatic weeds in water deep enough to remain cool and oxygen-rich as the tadpoles develop. The annual migration of toads from the countryside to suitable ponds and lakes has fascinated me since first studying their population ecology in mid Wales nearly half a century ago.
This year I joined local toad enthusiast Andrew Hodgson in protecting
