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‘Toad Patrol Volunteers Needed’ - I spotted the notice in the local parish magazine. After a chat with our local co-ordinator, a walking tour of the patrol area and signing the standard common sense Health & Safety form I was ready to go.
Read more: Here's to the 2025 Toad Migration - On Patrol in 2024 with the Common Toad, Bufo bufo.
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Congratuations to Georgette for receiving an award in recognition of her work over the past eight years, building the patrols in the Wymondham area. Many of the patrollers have been personally recruited by Gtte!
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Dorsal and ventral view of Placobdella costata
Toadwatch patrollers heve never reported seeeing a leech on a toad! Froglife would like us to report any sightings of leeches - apparently a leech from Tunisia has been found in the south of the UK.
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It is hoped that a new patrol will be organized in Docking, in time for the 2025 migration. See the article in the EDP.
Please see the Meetings page for details of a talk to be held in November 2024.
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As at 25/03 most of the patrols have finished patrolling, please see the summary below. If you look at the historic records, please bear in mind that some patrols that have large numbers (eg Cranwich and Cockley Cley) are no longer sending numbers to Toadwatch - other smaller patrols have started elsewhere, so the overall number of patrols looks similar.
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Whilst patrolling at Wramplingham Road on Tuesday, I noticed about 8 male toads on the verges near to the pond. Several were mostly submerged in large puddles! The toads stayed in much the same position for all the time that I was there - sometimes they turned round to face the other direction.
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People are always asking how the numbers saved in the current year compare to the previous years. There are several options on the Records page to view the data - you can also use the links below. The data for 2024 is updated on Fridays so can be a bit behind the live data that is also shown on the Records page. Here are some examples of what you can see (use the Location drop down to select by Patrol) - the overall totals are skewed by there not being the same number of patrols reporting each year.
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There were two weeks of extremely mild and damp weather at the start of February and the toads took the opportunity to move to their ponds. We are used to seeing males moving early but it was surprising to see so many females on the move so early. As a consequence, patrols saw toads leaving the ponds from mid February.
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Anne spotted this white and discoloured spawn in the pond at the John Innes (20/03/2023). An expert commented "The white mottled spawn is likely either infertile or damaged by frost or insufficient sunlight and thus not developing. Hopefully it’s only a small proportion of the spawn in the pond. "
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Elsing patrol reported seeing " small number of these matt dark grey ones with uniform tiny warts (there’s also another sort - bigger, longer, whiter, with very pronounced and dark warts, rangy looking with a swaggery gait."