Toads (The Toad)

Available for over a year

Chris Packham relives programmes from The Living World archives. The loveable Mr Toad in Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows talked long about what he planned to do in the days to come. In this programme from 2000 Lionel Kelleway heads to a Surrey woodland to see for himself what toads really get up to on a warm damp evening in March. Disappearing from our view in early winter, once the conditions are suitable in early spring toads will reappear en-masse as if by magic it seems. These warty amphibians are a much loved part of the British countryside but as Lionel discovers from herpetologist Julia Wycherley while still widespread their numbers are declining. Many factors are at work to threaten toads, loss of wet woods and ponds, fragmentation of the habitat and human disturbance to name a few and as this programme begins by a busy road, the famed toad movement in spring across a busy road often poses another barrier. Producer Andrew Dawes.