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Volunteers have celebrated a “significant year” for mating toads as thousands have been saved thanks to an annual tradition.
A patrol group spent more than 600 hours guiding the amphibians across a half-mile (0.8km) stretch of Charlcombe Lane, near Bath, Somerset, to help them reach their ancestral breeding lake in the valley below.
This year saw the best turnout for toads (1,547) since 2012, the second-best for palmate newts (1,015) and the fourth-best for frogs (1,064) since the patrols began in 2003.
Helen Hobbs, patrol manager at the Charlcombe Toad Rescue Group, said “this feels like a significant year” for the local population.
