Help a toad across the road!

12.00.00am GMT Tue 17th Mar 2009

Wildlife friendly Councillor admits to being "Toad-ally Amazed" at sudden drive invasion.

Whitehill, Bordon and Lindford's County Councillor Adam Carew who is also a keen ecologist (wildlife specialist) has been baffled by a sudden outbreak of toads on his drive.

Adam Carew said: "Every night when I come back from my evening meetings lately I have had to stop my car and hop out in my suit to pick toads off my drive. Thankfully I have not run over any but I am totally bemused as to why they have chosen my drive to meet up on.

"I have a wildlife garden with two very small ponds in my front garden and two good sized ones in the back which contain species of newt and common frogs but I have never had toads in such numbers and certainly they have never bred in my garden until now - except its my drive not the ponds they seem most interested in."

Adam who used to be a secretary of a reptile and amphibian group helping to organise "toad watches", transporting toads in buckets across busy roads to their breeding grounds, has no qualms about carefully picking them up.

He explained "Frogs are slimy and full of energy, toads have loose dry skins and are far more passive, they prefer to crawl than leap so are not at all slippery or difficult to pick up. Its unusual to find so many toads just sitting and calling to eachother on my drive, although they can migrate miles to get back to their natal ponds (where they started off life) to breed in large numbers. The two nearest ponds I know of with good toad populations are Knox's Pond on the Deadwater Local Nature Reserve and Forest Pond (aka Forrey Pond) on the Hogmoor enclosure."

Whitehill is unusual in that it contains both types of British toad the common toad and the rare natterjack. The latter is found on Longmoor Ranges and populations are carefully monitored under the careful eye of the Herptofauna Conservation Trust, but even common toads are not so common these days, due to diseases like red leg. Worldwide, toads and frogs populations are in sudden catastrophic decline due its thought to climate change and the effects of increased radiation and UV rays on their sensitive skin.

Adam Carew who used to lecture in ecology and biology still runs occasional courses in wildlife gardening said: "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, Whitehill Parish is the only place in the whole of the UK to contain all 12 breeding reptiles and amphibians and that makes us very special. 60 % of our Parish is protected for wildlife and that means we have to be very careful about any new development that is planned here and we have been a green grid of planning wildlife corridors to help species move and migrate between habitats.

"I actually feel rather flattered that they have chosen my garden as a Des Res so may be my wildlife garden techniques are finally paying off. "