Toads under and over the road in Coleorton
Spring is here and toads have been on the move! They have an interesting life cycle. In the spring they breed in ponds and lakes after which they disperse into woodland, fields & gardens, before returning to breed the following year. Many of the breeding sites are situated close to roads. Fortunately the mass migration occurs mainly at night, beginning in the early evening and continuing until dawn, but of course, many roads are busy during the night, commonly resulting in casualties. A national organisation called Froglife organises road crossing patrols in all parts of the country and in recent years has succeeded in saving the lives of over 100,000 toads each year during the breeding season. Breeding males significantly outnumber females because female maturation takes longer. After the breeding season the adults move back to their terrestrial habitats during the night and so, again, can be killed during road crossings. Eggs laid in the breeding sites develop into tadpoles and later in the year, during summer (usually in July or August), they metamorphose into small toads (as little as 1cm long), which emerge from the water and travel slowly over land, during the night, towards the terrestrial sites from which the adults had emerged during the spring. Once again there is a serious likelihood of death whilst crossing roads.
One of the most significant breeding sites in NW Leicestershire is the Fishpond in Church Town, Coleorton, close to the busy Ashby Road (A512) and The Moor. In the early 1990’s, a new section of the Ashby Road was constructed. It runs on land to the north of the Fishpond where there is a large and well established population of common toads. It was clear that the new road would seriously impact the influx of toads from farmland to the north of the Fishpond during the breeding season in early spring, and the subsequent return of the adults … and later on, in summer, the exodus of newly metamorphosed juveniles.
Beginning in the early 1980’s when I led a research group from De Montfort University, I have studied the toad population in Coleorton. When the road development was planned we suggested the use of road surface tunnels to enable the toads, moving in from land to the north, to reach the Fishpond safely during their spring immigration. This was rejected on the basis of cost. Instead, large tunnels were placed deep under the road, with a concrete slab fence line along each side of the road, to prevent toads getting onto the road. Unfortunately, in early spring, during immigration, air in the tunnels is too cold to support toad movement, so that in the spring there was a build up of individuals along the fenceline. Consequently, we inserted pitfall traps along the fence on the north of the road and transferred captured toads to the Fishpond manually. Fortunately, the large tunnels (and the stream flowing under the road) did provide a useable route for the return of adults after breeding and for newly metamorphosed individuals later in the year, when the air had warmed.
Since the 1990’s, each spring during the breeding season, the toads from the north have been collected from the traps and transported to the Fishpond. This involves about 20 visits each year, starting in late February or in March, depending on weather conditions. The average number of adult toads transported has been 220 per year, varying between 115 & 650 since 2005. During the last two years the Ashby Section of the Leics. & Rutland Wildlife Trust has kindly instituted help from volunteers to prepare and monitor the crossings. Toads on the south of the Fishpond have to travel across the much less busy old Ashby Road … look out for the toad warning signs there!
Compiled by: Rob Oldham
member of the Coleorton Heritage Group
May 2025