Toads

Colour: Grey- green

About: The Common Toad is widespread throughout the whole of Europe and Asia, abundant everywhere except Ireland, it will be found in woods, fields, gardens, and any dark moist areas. Most of their time is spent in damp places under rocks and logs. A nocturnal animal it eats insects, worms, molluscs and occasionally small amphibians. It hibernates over-winter in small dry holes and under logs and stones.

Breeding: Goes to water in spring, after mating the female lays 2 strings of 1000 - 6000 eggs underwater which are entwined around aquatic plants by both parents. Tadpoles hatch in about 12 days and metamorphose after a further 70 - 90 days, the young then leave the water. They grow slowly becoming adult in about 5 years, with a life span of up to 40 years.

Size: Females up to 130mm, males up to 80mm.

(2) NATTERJACK TOAD (Bufo calamita)

Colour: Green-yellow and warty with a yellow stripe down their back. Underside off white. Female takes on bluish tinge to throat in breeding season.

About: The Natterjack are now one of the rarest native anurian species with only a few localised colonies existing in the UK spending the majority of their time out of water. Natterjacks are easily distinguished from the common toad Bufo bufo by the yellow stripe which runs down the centre of its back, but other obvious features include its generally smaller size, horizontally aligned pupil and lighter skin colour. The Natterjack also differs from the common toad in that it only occurs across a rather narrow range of heathland, coastal sand dune and saltmarsh habitats.

Breeding: From April to September in water, female lays up to 4,000 eggs. It requires very shallow pools in which to lay its spawn, thereby avoiding competition from common toads and predation by fish or invertebrates. Although Natterjacks breed quite late in the spring to lessen the effects of predators and competitors, this strategy does mean that tadpoles have to develop quickly before their ponds dry up. For the rest of the year, Natterjacks are less dependent on water and inhabit burrows in the ground, emerging at night to hunt for invertebrates amongst short vegetation.

Size: Female 100mm, male 80mm.

The Natterjack toad has undergone a marked decline during the last 100 years and became extinct at the last of its north Wales coast sites during the 1960s. Habitat destruction and deterioration have been the major factors behind its decline, with the development of the north Wales coast for tourism and housing accounting for the loss of most of its Welsh sites. Natterjack ToadAlthough covered by an action plan, the Natterjack toad has already been the focus of a great deal of conservation effort and research over the past 20 years. The British Herpetological Society has been at the forefront of much of this work, whilst English Nature and CCW have funded a recently completed Species Recovery Programme for the toad. As part of this work, Natterjacks were re-introduced to one former north Wales site, and further releases may take place in the future. The action plan builds on this work by setting further targets for the future.

Toad Spawn

Toad spawn is quite distinct from frog spawn, it is laid in long strings usually wrapped around plant.