Lionel Kelleway is in Surrey looking for spring toads in Living World
During mild spells in March, common toads stir from their winter torpor and begin plodding – not hopping, as frogs do – towards ancestral breeding pools. Most move on damp evenings with an air temperature of at least 7°C, but roads represent a lethal obstacle. On busy nights, Toads on Roads patrollers in high-vis help hundreds of the sluggish amphibians across the tarmac.