What happened to the frog who parked on double yellow lines? He was toad away!
Yes, a terrible joke to start this month’s column. But a great way to introduce the subject, frogs and toads.
Do you know you might have them in your garden, even if you haven’t got a pond?
Although they need ponds to breed, the adults can move away to find food and are happy in any damp corner.
There they will live, catching and eating bugs, beetles, flies and all sorts of other garden pests. Quite the gardener’s friend!
Mind you, April is the time when both frogs and toads are likely to be only found at ponds.
We are now in peak breeding time. From all around, they will have made their way back to ancestral ponds.
You may be able to see them as they make their dangerous journeys, across paths and roads which humans have built across their route.
Do keep an eye out on your driveway to avoid croaking these intrepid travellers as you park your car.
Once they reach the pond there is a bit of a scrum as males fight to find and then hang onto an interested female.
When the mating is done, the eggs are laid. Frogspawn is a mass of little black eggs, each surrounded by jelly and hanging together in a clump.
Toadspawn is rather different, strands of jelly with the eggs forming a double row inside, rather like a twinset of black pearls.
In either case, the eggs hatch into tadpoles which eventually change into tiny versions of the adults and then leave the pond.
So what is the difference between frogs and toads?
Toads have shorter hind legs than frogs and tend to crawl rather than hop.
But the biggest difference is their skin.
A frog’s skin is moist and smooth. A toad’s skin is dry and warty, with a particularly large lump just behind the eyes.
So keep your eyes for both this month. Hop to it!
by Dr Chris Andrews
Visitor experience manager
RSPB Frampton Marsh
