Join the Toad Patrol: volunteer opportunities explained

How to help toads on roads

Last night the weather was a little milder, and it had been raining (ha! surprise!) so there was a general rallying of the volunteers on the group chat. I headed to a spot a mile or two from my house, to help John (the coordinator) and Linda at the Wimbles Lake site. Another volunteer, Andy, joined us, and we paired up with our torches and buckets to walk up and down the lane, looking for toads. I say bucket, but in my excitement I had forgotten to pick mine up on my way out, so improvised with a dog bowl I had in the boot of my car. Toads can be quite strong and jumpy when on migration, especially the males who aren’t laden with eggs, so a high-sided bucket is preferable.

We spotted a female within a few minutes or arriving. Here she is:

She was quite a youngster so only about 6cm in length; mature females can reach almost twice that size. The males are smaller – more streamlined and frog-like. The advantage of the shallow bowl was that it was easier to deliver her through the bars of the gate on the lake side of the road!

Adding to the confusion, there is a pond on the opposite side of the road to the lake, so we had to check which direction the toads were heading before helping them to safety…there were a couple just facing up or down the road in the middle so not very diagnostic! We had some very large females, and the couple of casualties were males which isn’t great, but at least there will be tadpoles if the females are saved.

In spite of the milder conditions, it still felt cold, and there were only 20 or so toads in the final count. It was good for me to have a quiet evening for my first day, and having a decent group of volunteers means the cars slow down, many stopping to chat and thank us for what we’re doing.

For me it was particularly poignant as about 15 years ago I took a pottery class, and the last few weeks of the course broke my heart as the road was covered in toads as I drove to the venue, and it was impossible to miss them. Yesterday evening I realised that I was at the same place, confirmed by Linda that the previous owners of the house with the lake were indeed the people who ran the pottery class. Numbers of toads have reduced drastically in recent years, and like hedgehogs, really aren’t built for today’s unforgiving environment. I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment at having helped even just a handful of toads make it to their breeding pond, and according to John, last year alone over a 1000 toads were saved by this small group alone. So far, about 200 have been helped, which given the very cold start to the year is not surprising. A frog and some newts were also rescued; we don’t discriminate!

All in all it was a thoroughly wholesome evening, and even the poor ones who didn’t make it weren’t too harrowing to deal with – something that had been troubling me. The temperatures are mild again tonight so I will be donning my reflective waterproofs and heading out again this evening.

If you feel you can help, do please check the Froglife website to see if you have a toad patrol near you.