Hey folks,

A little change from birds today – toads!

I was very lucky to come across these two yesterday – or rather, they were lucky to come across me. There is a railway crossing near my house with a stream running alongside it and a nearby pond. The toads often end up on the road that runs over the stream or on the railway tracks, and as you can imagine that often doesn’t end well for them 😦

I spotted these two, and another lone toad, on the road and after seeing a car narrowly avoid all three, I scooped them up (in my scarf – don’t touch toads, they’re toxic!) and got them across the road to the stream at the other side. My good deed for the day!

These are Common Toads, one of only two species we have in the UK, the other being the rarer Natterjack Toads.

I’d never seen one hitching a ride on another like this, but apparently it is common during the breeding season. The larger toad doing the carrying is the female, with the smaller male on her back. This is actually known as ‘amplexus’ and is their mating embrace. The male toad has specially adapted pads on his front legs which help him grip on to the female so they can mate.

Lots of baby toads to come soon, then! We get an ‘exodus’ of them at the same spot I found these two – there will literally be hundreds if not thousands of tiny toads around the site of a thumbnail all making their way out into the world. I’m hoping to get some good snaps this year since I know to expect it, we were taken by surprise with it last year.

I get that a lot of people are a little weirded out by toads and other amphibians, but I think they’re very cute and have some very striking markings – not to mention those eyes!

Thanks for visiting,

Kaylin