Toads not lazy but too cold to start migrating

A TOTAL of 259 toads, nine frogs and four newts was helped by the Henley Toad Patrol in the past week.

Colder weather meant toad migration slowed down from the previous week when more than 700 amphibians were collected.

They were picked up by volunteers at a temporary barrier installed last month and carried across the Marlow Road in buckets to avoid them being run over before being released into their spawning pond on the Culden Faw Estate.

Almost 200 of the toads were collected on Tuesday last week. There was some rain during that night, which led to a significant number of toads being collected at dawn.

Professor John Sumpter, a volunteer who collects the data, said: “The clear, cold nights recently have not been suitable for amphibian migration.

“If the air temperature is at or below around 6C, amphibians stay buried under leaf litter, fallen branches etc waiting for warmer weather before continuing their march to their spawning ponds.

“Thus, relatively few toads were collected by volunteers in the past week. There were two nights when the weather was, to some extent, suitable but on most nights not one toad was found at the temporary barrier.”

If no volunteers are present to collect them, toads will walk along the barrier to find a route round it or over it. At the Marlow end of the barrier, in a field alongside the road, a bucket is buried in the ground, which acts as a pitfall trap to catch toads that reach the end of the barrier in an attempt to prevent them getting on to the road.

This year the bucket has collected quite a few toads on some nights. They are then easily collected by a volunteer at dawn and taken to their spawning pond.

Prof Sumpter said: “Although the volunteers were not overworked, a couple of interesting wildlife sightings were made.

“A hedgehog was seen in the field between the road and the spawning pond. Locally, hedgehogs usually do not emerge from hibernation until mid-March, so this individual had woken up considerably earlier than usual.

“Hopefully it can find enough food to maintain its body weight during the current cold nights until warmer weather arrives and food is easier to find.

“The most unusual wildlife sighting was an adult wallaby in Oaken Grove Wood. Sightings of wallabies are infrequent but not rare locally.

“The animals might have escaped from a local enclosure, where they live happily and almost naturally.

“A lesson in the biology of frogs was provided by a population that spawns each year in a pond at Southend.

“These frogs appear in the pond each spring, spawn, then depart, all in a few days at most. How they manage to co-ordinate their movements is a mystery.

“This year about 30 frogs were present in the pond one morning, having arrived overnight. None had been present the day before.

“They spawned that day and were all gone by the next day. Thus they were in their spawning pond for no more than two days. The same is true every year, demonstrating that a species often thought of as aquatic actually spends almost all its time in the terrestrial environment, not in water.

“A hedgehog is also active at Southend. This lucky individual is fed by me each night and it soon learnt where its food is placed.”