You may spot toads returning to their overwintering grounds. Seen from March to October, toads can be told apart from frogs by their warty, dry skin, amber-coloured eyes and preference for crawling rather than hopping. They spend less time in water than their wet-skinned, brown-eyed, hopping cousins, so you might find them taking shelter beneath your shed or among stones or logs, rather than in your pond.
However, they do breed in ponds – tending to choose larger bodies of water, particularly those where fish are present. This is because toad tadpoles, like the adults, are slightly poisonous, meaning predators such as fish and newts tend not to eat them, thus they have the advantage over frog and newt larvae. Unlike frogspawn, toad spawn is laid in ribbons and wrapped…
