As the nights warm up, something is stirring in the damp, dark corners of the county – toads are on the move.

Common toads are usually solitary souls, but the call of spring sees them migrating in their hundreds to their ancestral breeding ponds. This can be a perilous journey, as toads sometimes have to cross busy roads in the dark to reach their mates.

Oxfordshire’s roads can be real hotspots for toads in spring. Henley has one of the largest toad crossings, with thousands dodging busy traffic to cross the A4155 every year.

So, keep an eye on the roads for toads crossing if you’re out driving on warm, damp nights.

Once at the breeding sites, the males piggy back the females for mating, with several males often clinging onto the same poor female at once. The female toad lays long strings of spawn, or eggs, under the water – not floating on the surface like frogspawn.

The toad spawn is wrapped around the aquatic plants, where it hangs like a string of black pearls.

Depending on the weather, after about three or four weeks, the eggs will hatch out into a mass of tiny wriggling black tadpoles. It takes three or four months for the tadpoles to lose their tails and grow legs, before they turn into toadlets and hop off into the undergrowth.

Every garden needs a toad. Despite their reputation as warty and ugly creatures, common toads are terrific amphibians.

While they might not look as pretty as our friends the frogs, count yourself lucky if you have toads in your garden, as they love munching on slugs and snails.

Largely nocturnal, toads are amphibians and they do like damp spots, but they don’t need to live in ponds all year round. They spend much of their life in gardens, woodlands and meadows. They often spend the winter hidden in dark, damp spaces beneath logs, under hedgerows, stones and even flowerpots. If you lift a loose paving slab in your garden, you may be lucky enough to find a toad lurking underneath it.

The common toad, whose scientific name is Bufo bufo, can live for up to four years.

Female toads are usually slightly bigger than the males, weighing in at about 80g and measuring up to 13cm long.Toads tend to ‘walk’ rather than hop like a frog. They produce a nasty-tasting toxin from glands on their back, which makes them very unappealing for predators looking for a snack.

Their skin is an olive brown colour and they have copper coloured eyes. Their skin is textured and covered in small lumps and bumps, which is what earned them their warty reputation.

Toads are protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981 and while they are widespread in the south of England, they are sadly in decline in some areas. They prefer deeper ponds for breeding, such as village duck ponds, garden ponds and ponds on farms.

Unfortunately, these kinds of freshwater habitats have been rapidly disappearing – the 20th century saw half of all ponds destroyed – and the majority of those that remain are at risk from development or pollution, which makes life even harder for our toads.

You can help toads thrive on your local patch by including a wildlife-friendly pond in your garden and leaving piles of logs and untidy areas for them to hide in.

Or why not lend a hand volunteering at a toad road crossing in your area? There are various neighbourhood toad watch schemes operating, where bands of volunteers scoop up the hapless amphibians in buckets, ferrying them across the roads to safety – preventing them being squashed by passing vehicles.

Toads can be found on many of Berks, Bucks and Oxon Wildlife Trust’s nature reserves. CS Lewis reserve on the eastern edge of Oxford is a particular stronghold for these fascinating amphibians.

They are also found in the Cothill area and across the Upper Ray Meadows near Bicester, on the Oxon-Bucks border.

See bbowt.org.uk